help on what priv cover to choose

[happy32]

Planning to TTC next year. unsure whether to go public or private. Any recommendations on a fund?:confused:

[Izy]

I'm slightly biased cause I work for MBF, but I can give you some pointers in what you want in cover.

Make sure you choose a cover with NO exclusions, NO benefit limitation periods and NO restricted benefits. The sales people make them sound like such a lovely idea at the time (I don't need heart to be covered... I'm young... I could use the public system... why pay for it?) BUT what happens if bubs is a heart baby etc?

The idea of the health insurance is to give you choices in one of those situations you hope never happens. I always originally though I would entirely go public (I'm not fussy on which dr's I see) but circumstances have seen me VERY VERY glad to have full cover.

make sure you choose an excess that you can afford if you go into hospital and make sure that you would be able to afford excess for you and bubs just in case.

If you already have an ob you might even like to ask them if they have a fund they prefer to deal with to give you a starting point.

If you have any Q's feel free to ask. :thumbsup:

[MelissafromSyd]

To be honest, I think you need to ask yourself what's important to you in a fund and then go from there. iselect can help a lot! I focussed on the extras cover and went for the fund that paid the highest benefits for the extras I needed.

As far as birthing goes, if you have a high risk pregnancy, you might need an obstetrician, and therefore you might want private cover so you can choose your oB. But if you're like 80% women who have healthy pregnancies, midwife care is best for you (in terms of outcomes for you and baby) and midwifery models of care can only be accessed in public hospitals or through independent mdiwives, hence private cover would not be needed.

[beebs]

I went through iselect and they told me that for pregnancy AHM were the best. So fart they have been really good. for an extra $5 a month I don't have to pay any excess in hospital. That was a deal to good for me to turn down.

[Roxy]

We are with Medibank Private - have the smart couples plan.

I was originally with MBF, but discovered that for our children to be covered from birth, we would need to upgrade to the family level of cover 12 months BEFORE they were born. I wasn't happy with that idea - what if it took me 12 months to fall pregnant? We would have been paying family level cover for nearly 2 years before actually 'needing' it...

Medibank Private don't change you to family cover until your children start school, and they are automatically covered from birth - you just ring and add them to your policy.

I do admit that I have not researched health insurance for a while, and MBF may have changed the way they do things, but when I was researching, MBP were one of the few who didn't require you to upgrade to family cover before you had your family.