Can you get Private Health Insurance just for your child/ren?

[ladybugblue84]

I was just wondering if it was possible to just get private health insurance for your child/ren? I have never had private health insurance before so know nothing about it.

[beebs]

My son is on our family health insurance. I'm not sure if you can just get it for the kids though.

[Bron]

I'm not sure. I do know that our son is on our insurance free of charge until he is 18 or stops studying full time, so they are covered by it. I'm not sure whether private health funds do insurance schemes just for children, presumably they would. It certainly can't hurt to ask, but be prepared for them to try to sell you health insurance because your child will then be covered without extra cost.

[ladybugblue84]

Thanks ladies for your replies. I'll have a ring around. At the moment it's just me & my daughter so might be able to get cover for the both of us which won't break the bank.

[Izy]

Since recent changes to government rulings the funds now need to offer soleparent policies that are priced cheaper than 2 parent famillies ;)

As for having only your child on there... most funds shouldn't without special circumstances, but you'll find that different funds have different rulings.

[Mamaduke]

I was on our private health fund's website the other day and was surprised to see that they offered children only cover...
We're with NIB.

[Mamaduke]

Oops, sorry...I've just had a look and it wasn't only for the children.
It's a family basic saver plan
for families on a budget who mostly need cover for the kids
It's from $29.54 p/w.

[ladybugblue84]

Great thanks for that, I'll look into that one & what it covers. Cheers.

[RockmelonDreams]

We are with Defence Health and they offer children only cover. You do have to be serving in the ADF or have a family member who is to access this health fund though. I'm sure some of the bigger health funds would also offer this coverage.

[Izy]

Having parents in defence health is one of the 'exceptional circumstances' I mentioned.

Children only cover is not common. Defence Health is very special as it cater for those who have medicare, but it also covers in full for those serving who lose their medicare for the period of their service. It works on a tangent to other PHI in Aust.

[RockmelonDreams]

Hi, have you tried Medibank Private? I was talking to my neighbour today who works for Medibank Private (I didn't know this until today, lol) and she was saying that they offer cover for individual children based on the rate of a single person and that if you have more than 2 children they also offer a single parent cover which covers 1 parent and up to 6 children which works out to be cheaper if you have more than 2 children than insuring them individually.

I was really surprised when she said that they normally encourage parents with children under the age of 13 to take out extra's cover only because most private hospitals don't cater for children under the age of 13, so if they do need to be hospitalised for a specialised reason then children under 13 normally are sent to the local public children's hospital because the private ones very rarely have the specialised equipment needed for children and having private insurance doesn't help you jump the public waiting list, so when they are insuring children only they advise parents to save the money on hospital cover and just have top cover extras which cover all their dental, optical and other specialist needs. I'd never thought about it this way before, but now that it's been explained to me, it makes alot of sense as our local private hospitals don't cater for children and they have to be admitted to the public ones.

Something to think about anyway and as someone else has already said NIB also have a children's only cover. If Medibank Private insure children based on the single rate, then I'd ring around a few companies and see who else also offers this. I've found with most companies no matter what industry their best deals are never listed on their websites and you need to ring and request what you want.

Good Luck.

[MyTwoBlue]

Thankyou so so so much RockmelonDreams great info, i hadnt even thought about that and it would save me alot of money which i need...and most of us anyway! Im definately going to look into this very carefully now.