Switching Your Health Insurance Policy
It’s a good idea to review your health insurance policy on a regular basis to make sure that it’s still the best option for your needs. As you get older and your health needs change, you may find that your current health insurance policy is no longer the best fit. After all, you don’t want to pay for services that are no longer relevant to you and miss out on coverage options that are better suited to your needs.
If your current health insurance policy isn’t right for you anymore, it’s in your interests to switch to a policy that offers better value for money and that covers you for the risks that affect you at this point in time. Whether you’re looking to change to a different health fund at the moment or are just curious about how to do so in the future, here’s what you need to know about switching your health insurance policy.
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How to Make a Switch
Transferring between health funds isn’t as complicated as you might think. In most cases, you can set the ball rolling by filling in an application form for the health insurance policy that you want to switch to and your health fund will send a Transfer Form to sign and send back to confirm that you’re authorising the new health fund to cancel your previous contract and receive your records from your old health fund.
If you overpaid on premiums with your previous health fund by paying upfront, these should be refunded to you. It’s up to you to cancel any direct debits relating to premiums for your previous health fund though.
What About Waiting Periods?
If you’re switching to a policy that has the same or a similar coverage level to your existing policy, you won’t have to serve out another waiting period if you’ve seen out the one on your current policy. If you’re part of the way through the waiting period on your current policy, you’ll have to wait out the rest on your new policy before you can access the benefits. For example, if you’ve served out four months of the twelve month waiting period on your current policy, you’ll have to wait eight months before you can use that benefit on your new policy.
Will My Lifetime Health Cover Be Affected?
As long as you maintain hospital cover with an excess of $500 or less for singles and $1000 or less for couples and families, your Lifetime Health Cover eligibility won’t be impacted.
Making a Claim On Your New Policy
If you’ve already claimed a benefit on your previous policy, you can’t do the same on your new policy in a twelve month time frame.
It’s recommended that you review your health insurance policy at least once a year to make sure that it’s still the best option for you and spend some time checking comparison websites to see if you can get a better deal elsewhere. If now is the time to switch to a different health fund, the process is a lot less complicated than many people assume and if you’ve already served out your waiting period for a particular benefit, you can access it as soon as you need to.
This article is opinion only and should not be taken as financial advice.
Filed Under: Insurance Tips
