4 health insurance features to look for in 2024 – beyond just price
With the cost of living rising, it's tempting to cut back on your expenses. But that doesn't mean you need to sacrifice on your hospitals and extras cover.
Sponsored by HBF. HBF offers award-winning cover that caters to a wide range of lifestyles.
So, we don't want to pretend otherwise. The cost of your chosen health cover is important - to your health and your wallet!
Beyond price, there are some other important considerations to make when choosing the right health cover for you. Today, we take a look at four for you to weigh up.
1. Additional support for your health
Your health cover can often also support your health in ways that go beyond the hospital or professional treatment.
There are rewarding health programs available to eligible members through both extras and hospital cover that could help you manage a chronic health condition or hit a health goal.
HBF offer a range of programs, including the evidence-based CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet Program and the GLA:D Program for Osteoarthritis.
With some of these programs fully covered for eligible members^, it's worth exploring your options to secure extra value.
2. Value for money
The provider and policy you choose will impact the month-to-month amount you spend. What's important though, is value for money – and cheaper doesn't always mean better.
Let's look at HBF as an example.
HBF is a not-for-profit health insurance provider. They have a reputation for offering a wide range of hospital and extras cover options that can be tailored to your specific needs at a reasonable price.
With HBF, you can mix and match your cover. This means you have the freedom of choosing a hospital and extras combo that covers you for what you need rather than having you pay for services you won't use.
Say you play a contact sport. After weighing up the risks, you may decide that you want your hospital cover to provide peace of mind for injury.
Then, you might decide you want your extras to cover you for things like general dental and physio, instead of psychology, which you know you don't need.
So you could then opt for Silver Hospital and Basic Extras.
Another factor around value is knowing what you'll get back – that is, the benefit you'll get in your pocket if you make a claim.
HBF caters to those who like to know exactly what they will get back when they claim, with set percentage back options on offer.
They also offer per-person limits with their extras cover. This means you don't have to share your annual limit when you share your health cover with a partner or family members.
This leads us to limits.
When you put two competing policies side by side, you can see the same services included and excluded. But the limits can be another story.
This is where you need to look at the 'limit structure'. Do you get a combined limit across a range of services to use flexibly how you like? Or are there separate limits for individual services?
The more you know about what you want and need out of your cover, the more your health will benefit.
3. Making it personal
Purchasing health cover isn't just about meeting your current healthcare needs. It's also about your future needs, too.
Mix-and-match policies can be highly effective, but it's also worth considering whether comprehensive policies are appropriate for your needs.
As the name suggests, comprehensive health insurance offers a broader range of coverage across hospital and extras cover.
Nobody wants to imagine a health crisis in the making. But it is smart to stop and think about some lifestyle elements and your family health history to help make the best decision for you and your family.
Of course, everyone's health cover needs are different. Someone who knows through regular check-ups that they don't have the best teeth may want to be covered for major dental. Others will have the knowledge through family history to make sure heart and vascular cover are prioritised.
It can be worth talking with a healthcare professional about both your family history and your future health goals to determine what type of health cover may suit you best.
4. Provider awards
Looking at the type of awards a health insurance provider has won can provide insights into their product quality.
For example, HBF won Best Health Fund of the Year in 2023.
Finder analysed nearly every health insurance policy available in Australia before awarding HBF.
During the analysis for the awards, it was revealed that HBF offers the most no-gap services (90.80%) of the 5 major health funds in Australia.
