Why you need to read the fine print on your health insurance renewal

When I received my health insurance premium notice it left me confused. This is why you must read the fine print.

Five different private health insurance quotes for the same policy from the same insurer.

Go figure.

This is exactly what happened to me when I recently sussed out my upcoming premium costs with a major health fund.

It’s confusing enough knowing whether you have the right private health insurance cover, let alone what you are entitled to if you do make a claim.

I phoned up my insurer a couple of weeks ago to find out what my next annual premium would be for my hospital and extras cover.

MORE: Private health insurance coming your way on April 1

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Australians should carefully read the fine print on their private health insurance renewals.

I pay my premium upfront each year — it’s a good way to save if you can afford it.

If you pay for 12 months cover ahead of the April 1 prices increases you can beat the increase that kicks in for the year ahead.

I was keen to know how much I was up for, because I hadn’t yet received my premium notice.

They told me it would be $2133 for another 12 months of cover.

Great. I knew how much money I needed to come up with before premiums rise by an average of 3.3 per cent.

But the following day the insurer sent me an email telling me my cover for the next year would be $1944 and it would be direct debited later this month.

Then in the same email they informed me, “after this we’ll deduct your regularly yearly premium of $2060 from your account starting on 21/09/2019.”

So all of a sudden I would be paying $4004?
I was confused and annoyed so I phoned them again.

After discussing the issue with the call centre operator, he removed my direct debits and told me my premium would be $2137 for 12 months if I paid up before April.

I told him it was poor form that the insurer sent me an email telling me they would deduct my annual premium — of different amounts — twice in the one year.

It ended up being an “IT error”.

The lesson from this is you have to watch insurers. Make sure you read the emails or letters you receive in the coming weeks because they may have stuffed it up.

As boring as it is, you must read the fine print on your renewal notices.

After finally working out $2137 would cover me for another year, I then got a call from the insurer’s complaints team telling me they were sorry and were looking into the issue.

I then received another notice last week saying I now owe $2060.

After more talks with the insurer, they said a $100 gift card would be on the way to me.

Rather than reforming the health insurance system — which is currently underway — how about starting with the basics and getting the right information to customers?

@sophieelsworth

Originally published as Why you need to read the fine print on your health insurance renewal