Emergency Services Health Fund (ES Health) is Australia’s only private health fund exclusively for emergency workers and their families.
They are backed by Police Health, which covers over 60,000 members of Australia’s police community and boasts an 85 year history.
The fund offers high benefits around psychology and counselling, as a reflection of the nature of their members’ jobs. They also allow you to roll over most of your extras benefits.
Nobody chooses to go to hospital. But when you do, hospital cover will help you get the treatment you need, where and when you want it. It also helps to pay the bills, as fees for hospital rooms and specialists can add up.
ES Health only offers top tier premium hospital cover, both as a standalone policy or combined with extras. The fund states that anything else would be doing a disservice to their members, who regularly risk their lives in their everyday occupations.
All Emergency Services Health Fund policies include 100% ambulance cover for emergency transport, clinically required non-emergency transport and treatment not requiring transport.
Ambulance cover is guaranteed for all ES Health members, regardless of whether they are in their home state or visiting another part of Australia.
Extras cover is there to help you with the cost of services generally not covered by Medicare, such as dental, optical, physiotherapy and a range of other services.
ES Health offers just one type of extras cover – Rolling Extras. Unlike other funds where all your annual benefit limits reset (usually on 1 January), most of your unused benefits with ES Health will roll with you from one calendar year to the next.
You’ll need to serve a 12 months waiting period after joining (or 2 years for major dental) before ES Health will let your benefit limits roll over.
Waiting periods are there to stop people from signing up, claiming and then cancelling their cover. It means once you take out a new plan, you’ll have to wait a specific amount of time before you can claim on your cover.
When you switch to ES Health from another provider, you won’t have to re-serve your waiting periods, unless your new policy covers something you didn’t have before.
As a not-for-profit fund, all profits are diverted back into ES Health to create greater benefits for members.
ES Health is backed by Police Health, which boasts a member satisfaction rating of 98% (Member Satisfaction Research, Members Health Fund Alliance, 2019).
All well as the rolling extras benefits, ES Health Fund members can also get access to the Nourish Baby program
Claim on the spot through the HICAPS payment system at your provider, or through the Queensland Country Health Fund Mobile app or online. You can also claim by email or post your claim form.
ES Health has agreements with a large number of hospital and day surgery providers across Australia.
When comparing policies, it’s worth checking if your preferred local hospitals and clinics are covered. Our specialists at Health Insurance Comparison can do this for you.
Source: Private Health Ombudsman
From 1 January to 31 March 2020, the Private Health Ombudsman received 1 complaint from an ES Health member.
ES Health is backed by Police Health, which boasts a member satisfaction rating of 98% (Member Satisfaction Research, Members Health Fund Alliance, 2019).
Source: Private Health Ombudsman
The Emergency Services Health Fund is restricted. You can only join ES Health if you or a close relation works or volunteers for an Australian emergency service, either now or in the past.
Eligible sectors include fire, ambulance, water or state emergency response and recovery sectors.
Alternatively, if you or a family member currently or have in the past worked for an Australian police fund, you may be eligible to join ES Health’s parent fund, Police Health.
Eligible family members for ES Health include children and their partners of emergency service workers, as well as grandchildren, siblings and their partners, and nieces and nephews.
Health Insurance Comparison does not compare for ES Health, so you’ll need to contact them directly to switch.
If you’re not eligible for ES Health, it’s free to compare a range of funds with Health Insurance Comparison.
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