The following is your Service Agreement for your payment arrangements with HIF for your health insurance premiums. This agreement is designed to explain what your obligations are when undertaking an arrangement with us. It also details what our obligations are to you.
Direct Debit payments
1. Debiting your account
By providing your payment details, you have authorised us to arrange for funds to be debited from your nominated account or credit card.
If the debit day falls on a day that is not a banking day, we may direct your financial institution to debit your account on the following banking day. If a debit is returned unpaid, we will attempt to debit the authorised account again. We will notify you with details of this payment.
By entering into this agreement, you authorise HIF to alter the amount to be debited in the event of changes to your level of cover, premium or if HIF is entitled to a payment of arrears. You authorise HIF to alter the amount to be charged from the appropriate date and for the appropriate amount in accordance with such changes.
If you are uncertain as to when the debit will be processed from your account or have any enquiries, you should contact us on 1300 134 060.
We will provide you a minimum of 14 days’ notice if the terms of the arrangement are to change.
2. Amendments by you
You may change, stop, defer a debit payment or terminate this agreement by providing us with at least ten (10) business days notification, by telephoning us on 1300 134 060 during business hours or through our Online Member Centre.
You may also stop a direct debit payment or cancel your direct debit request by contacting your financial institution.
3. Your obligations
It is your responsibility to:
(a) ensure that there are sufficient funds available in your nominated account to meet the debit payment on the nominated date.
(b) advise HIF if the account you have nominated to debit your premiums from is closed, transferred or if a credit card the new expiry date.
(c) ensure that the nominated account can accept direct debits.
(d) ensure that suitable arrangements are made if you cancel the direct debit arrangement yourself with your financial institution.
If there are insufficient clear funds in your account to meet a debit payment:
(a) you may be charged a fee and/or interest by your financial institution;
(b) upon the provision of a minimum of 14 days’ notice as outlined in clause 1, we will be entitled to recover any premiums in arrears by increasing the amount of any one or more debit payments until all premiums in arrears are paid; and
(c) we may, at our absolute discretion, cancel the service agreement and, in addition to any other course of action we may have in respect of your membership, we shall issue you with a notice of rejection and a renewal notice.
4. Dispute
If you believe that there has been an error in debiting your account, you should notify us immediately on 1300 134 060 so that we can resolve your query promptly. Upon such notification, we shall be granted a maximum of ten (10) business days to resolve your query.
5. Accounts
Direct debiting via the Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS) is not available on all accounts. You should check:
(a) with your financial institution whether direct debiting is available;
(b) your account details which you have provided to us are correct by checking them against a recent statement;
If you are uncertain about either of these details, you should confirm them with your financial institution before completing this Direct Debit Request.
6. Confidentiality
We will keep any information (including your account details) in your Direct Debit Request private and confidential and we will not use it for any purpose not connected with this agreement, without your consent. We will make reasonable efforts to keep any such information that we have about you secure and to ensure that any of our employees or agents who have access to information about you do not make any unauthorised use, modification, reproduction or disclosure of that information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
We will only disclose information that we have about you:
(a) to the extent specifically required by law; or
(b) for the purposes of this agreement (including disclosing information in connection with any query or claim).