Health insurers leave sour taste

GREEDY private health insurance funds have a lot to answer for.

The timing of their annual price hikes on April 1 couldn’t have been worse.

Right smack bang in the middle of all hell breaking loose with the COVID-19 outbreak, they were about to jack up their costs.

Admittedly this wasn’t their fault – April 1 is the date premiums rise every year – but it certainly wasn’t going to bode well if they proceeded.

But this needs to be pointed out: It was only days before the hikes were scheduled to happen that I’d worked on a story with a colleague, questioning funds on whether the rises would continue. And, you guessed it, yes they were.

This year premium rises were scheduled to increase by an average of 2.92 per cent.

There was only a handful of health insurers refusing to do this, including Perth-based fund HBF.

Its chief executive officer, John Van Der Wielen, told me on March 26 that his 1 million members should throw their premium rises in the bin. He confirmed they would be keeping their premiums the same price for the next 12 months.

Then on Sunday, March 29

– just three days before the hikes were due to kick in – Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt revealed the funds would be postponing their price hikes for at least six months. Finally, the funds were forced to come up with the goods and give millions of members a bit of a breather.

Prior to this, many funds had rolled out a series of COVID-19 measures but had left out the biggest one: freezing premium hikes.

I just paid my private health cover for the next 12 months to avoid any price hike and it’s not an amount to be sneezed at. I shelled out nearly $3000.

Smack bang in the middle of all hell breaking loose ... they were about to jack up their costs

And let’s not forget there’s now bans on all non-elective surgeries, which will save the funds billions of dollars.

So they can’t have it both ways: hiking premiums yet members not being able to use their policies for what they are needed for in the first place.

Some optometrists and dentists have also shut or reduced services, and these are key components under private health extras cover.

Private health insurers have been on the nose for a long time now, losing members every quarter as households ditch their cover in droves.

For many Australians, private health cover seems like a huge cost with little return.

I’ve always had private health cover and don’t plan to ditch it, ever, but these funds are going to face a huge battle now as undoubtedly more people will drop their insurance for being an expense they can no longer afford.