Australia’s third-largest health insurer HCF has bowed to pressure from the Minns government and agreed to double the amount it pays for its members to use single rooms in NSW public hospitals as part of a stoush splintering the insurers.

NSW Labor said on Sunday that Medibank Private, Bupa and NIB continued to refuse the government’s request to pay a higher room rate. However, NIB chief executive Mark Fitzgibbon disputed this and said the insurer had also agreed to pay a “significantly higher” rate.