Tightening The Household Spend? It's Easy - Save On Health Insurance!

Saving on Health Insurance is Easier Than You Think

With health insurance premiums rising every year, it’s never been more important to find ways to save a few dollars. The good news is, there’s plenty of competition out there and in some cases unique ways of doing things. There’s something for everyone in the health insurance market, so read on to find out how to save on health insurance.

Compare Health Insurance and Save

Many people stick with the same old health insurance provider for years. They think it’s just too hard to shop around and get a better deal. During those years, the prices keep going up and the claimable benefits seem to decrease. It can sometimes feel like you’re being held to ransom by your provider. With Billy Explores, that’s no longer a problem. All you need to do is head on over to our health insurance comparison page and through Billy Explores you can find if you can get a better deal or save on health insurance.

Lower Excess or Lower Premium?

While there’s plenty of health insurance providers out there with different benefit structures, one thing always remains the same. If you want to have little or no excess on your claims, you’ll need to pay a higher monthly premium.

We recommend choosing a plan with a higher excess and a lower monthly premium, particularly if you are reasonably healthy and don’t expect to be making many claims. Excess can be a bit of an unexpected cost if you do need to go to hospital. However it is probably cheaper than paying high monthly premiums for years waiting for a claim that may never come.

Lock Your Health Insurance Rate

Health insurance premiums generally go up on April 1st each year (or down, but we haven’t seen that for a long time!). This gives you a great opportunity to shop around and save on health insurance or get a better deal for you. If you’re happy with your current provider, contact them and ask to pay your premium for 12 months in advance.

Make sure you do this in plenty of time for payment to be processed prior to April 1st. This way you’ll be getting the previous year’s rate for another 12 months. If you pay your annual premium from March, every year you renew it, you’ll be on the previous year’s rate. This beats the new, increased price!

Choose Extras Carefully

When you’re comparing health insurance plans and working out how to save on health insurance, take a close look at the extras being offered on each type of plan. You may prefer to lower your premium by choosing no extras at all. However if you do find you use common ones like optical and dental it’s worth including those. If you don’t think you’ll ever use items like acupuncture, naturopathy or physiotherapy, cut them out and save some dollars.

Some plans give you extras in groups, others allow you to fully customise exactly what you pay for. So make sure you are only paying for what you realistically need.

Look closely at the extras offered on each type of private health insurance plan.

Rebates and Surcharges

Depending on your age and taxable income, the Australian government gives a rebate on private health insurance, as it takes some strain off the public health system. When signing up to a new health insurance plan, you have the option of receiving the rebate as a reduction in your monthly premium or get the rebate amount back at tax time.

On top of that, by having private health insurance you may be exempt from paying the Medicare Levy Surcharge in your tax return too – so make sure you have your details handy when lodging your taxes and save yourself some money.

If you think you’re paying too much for your health insurance, there’s help at hand! Billy Explores can show you exactly how you could either save on health insurance and put more money back in your pocket, or get a better value policy for you.