obogk

Hi There
There is 3 of us (me, husband and 2 year old) - we only have the medicare reciprocal care being on a work sponsor visa? Can anyone recommend any private health cover and eg of costs and how worth while it is ? Thanks

derab

This is a "how long is a piece of string" question..

If you are earning more than $100,000 for the family you will be up for a surcharge come tax time if you do not have hospital cover. it is 1% of your gross income, so that starts at $1,000.

I have gold hospital with GMF health based in Kalgoorlie because we are in the process of having kids and the fund pays the hospital fees without any fuss.

If you dont have any reason to think you are going to be claiming hospital expenses this year, then you can pick the cheapest offer going..
FYI GMF Bronze hospital only is $1050 a year approx.

another thing to bear in mind, the health funds add a surcharge of 2% on every year past your 30th birthday for every year you didn't have hospital cover.

As for the matter of extras, Dental, optical, chiro etc.. thats purely a lifestyle choice, I have extras at the moment but once junior is here, if he's healthy then we will be ditching the extras cover as i think saving the premium in an account will give me better results when we go to the dentist. (in 10 years when braces are a possibility then that might be a different matter )

tomy2tums

i have HIF top cover and top ancillaries, but my company pay 2500 a year towards it.

But, if you are on a work sponsored visa, are they required to cover you? I was on a 457 and had full cigna cover.

Newbie_Al

Hi there you can have a gander here - this will give you the costs
http://www.iselect.com.au/index.jsp

derab

Iselect.com will give you an idea, but they only have a few providers and are not necessarily the cheapest.

But it is a good starting place for your investigations

Wol

You are on a temporary visa then?

In which case the choice is limited - Australian Unity do a temporary visa cover policy - I found them pretty helpful.