bridie

I have heard of instances where you can back date your cover, so you can pay for months already gone in order to get covered for it, but TBH possibly wouldnt work out much cheaper?

Swerv-o

Some funds, like HCF, offer waivers of some of thier waiting periods, but I think they still insist on a full year for pre-existing conditions.

I've not heard of any funds offering back payments in order to give cover, though I guess that it could be feasible, and make sense if you were to negaotiate hard with them.

How do you go about claiming your exemption to the age loading surcharge if you have been here for less than 1 year? Do you need a letter, or just the entry stamp in your passport?

S

bridie

We had to get a letter from Medicare stating how long we'd been registered with them, think we might also have sent them a copy of the passport stamp.

If you phone Medicare they'll tell you what you need to do, I'm sure we had to write a letter to a specific address then they sent us a reply which was forwarded onto our private insurers. Only took a couple of weeks.

Worth doing because with that plus the Medicare rebate we ended up getting another 4 months cover (we paid upfront so they just extended the cover rather than mess about with refunds etc.)

HTH

suebrennan

I beg to differ - I have been paying Denplan in the UK for years - about 22 quid a month which covered all dental costs and 4 hygenist visits per year! And that 233 is just for me - what if you have a family? The costs could mount up substantially.

Re not knowing if it is worth paying insurance. Ask some Aussies - lots of them pay and I certainly have no intention of not paying. I was also advised by people at work to make sure I had full cover as "the standard of public hospitals is very poor here". Lets face it despite all the bad press the NHS is second to none and one of the things about living here is you have to find ways to soften the blow. That is just my opinion but I thought I should flag this up as I was pretty shocked!

In 6 months I have claimed money back for glasses and now teeth - have gotten more back than I paid in!

Sue