If you’re switching from one fund to another, you can rest assured that you will not have to re-serve waiting periods if you transfer to a policy that is at the same or a lower level of benefit. We will give you continuity for the waiting periods you have already served with your previous health fund. However, it’s important to note that if your new plan includes new or higher benefits that were not part of your old policy, you will have to serve the applicable waiting period for those benefits and this includes hospital excesses.
For example:
With your previous health fund, you had to pay an excess of $250 per admission. This was limited to a maximum of $400 per person per year.
You have now transferred to HIF and chosen an excess of excess of $200 which is only payable once per person, per calendar year.
You then need to go to hospital within your first 12 months of HIF cover and your admission relates to a pre-existing condition, in this instance the 12 month waiting period would apply and you would need to pay the previous rate of $400 upon admission to hospital. If your admission does not relate to a pre-existing condition and you have served the 2 month general hospitalisation waiting period, then this means you would pay the lower excess of $200.
Excesses and waiting periods can be quite confusing, so if you’d like to speak with someone over the phone to discuss this in more detail, please feel free to give us a call on 1300 13 40 60.
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