What is Community Rating?
The principal of community rating is to ensure that everybody has access to health insurance. Community rating prevents private health funds from discriminating between people on the basis of their:
health
gender
race
sexual orientation or religious beliefs
age (except to the extent allowed under lifetime health cover)
place of residence (except to the extent that they live in different risk equalisation jurisdictions
any other characteristic of a person that is likely to result in increased need for hospital treatment or general treatment
frequency with which a person requires treatment
amount of extent of the benefits to which a person becomes entitles during a period
What is Risk Equalisation?
The purpose of risk equalisation is to support the community rating principal. Insurers are not allowed to risk-rate premiums, so risk equalisation partially compensates insurers that have a riskier demographic profile by re-distributing money from those insurers paying less than average benefits to those paying higher than average benefits. The Risk Equalisation Trust is administered by APRA.
Important, please note: Unlike domestic health insurance, Overseas Working Visa policies are not required to meet the community rating principle created through the Private Health Insurance Act 2007. HIF reserves the right to decline or refuse an application for overseas visitors health cover at any time.