In the first part of this series we decided that there are a lot of good reasons to include your child on your family health insurance plan. So, in this part we’re going to take a look at what kind of plan to get, what to avoid, and a couple of tips for saving money.

In short, when choosing a health insurance plan your main focus should be getting quality, 100% cover for the things that really count – surgery and hospital care.

Some people also want their health insurance to pay for smaller costs like GP or dentist visits. However most quality plans don’t actually do this these days (and the plans that do still cover these costs are extremely expensive – typically two to three times the cost of a major medical plan). Or worse, they won’t properly pay for large costs like hospital treatment adequately. So, forget about getting cover for your smaller day-to-day medical expenses (like GP visits, dentists, etc) and focus on getting quality cover for the important bigger stuff.

If cover for GPs, dentists, etc is a concern, an idea is to put aside money into a bank account for your smaller medical expenses. Your health fund will keep growing – and if you don’t use that money it’ll be yours not the insurance company’s! Note that this type of ‘self insurance’ only works for smaller expenses (it would have to be one heck of a health fund to pay for cancer treatment costs of $100,000+).

Getting a major medical plan and paying for your own day-to-day costs is the best way to keep premiums down. In the final part of this series we’ll look at other ways you can save money on your health insurance premiums.

If you’re keen to find out more about health insurance you can visit www.inform.co.nz.

Next week, what kind of plan to get, what to avoid, and how to save money

www.inform.co.nz
0508 INFORM (46 36 76)

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