While we often fly under the media’s radar given our exclusivity to the police and emergency services community, our 0% premium increase caught the attention of Joel Gibson, Money Columnist at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and author of Easy Money: 7 Ways to Bust your Bills.
How was Police Health able to keep this year's premium increase to zero?
N.B. The following applies to both Police Health & Emergency Services Health (we are one health fund operating two brands).
We’re a not-for-profit health fund focused on providing the best possible value to our members – and we enter every annual premium review with this focus.
Given the current economic environment, and the fact that members voted us the #1 Health Fund for ‘Quality’, ‘Rebates’, ‘Service’ & ‘Trust’ in the most recent IPSOS Research*, we recognised price as the most important factor of value for our members this year.
So we worked hard to tip the scales in that direction and are pleased to deliver a promise of no premium increase guaranteed for a year.
We have always done things a little differently and to an extent our unique structure has helped get us in this position. For instance, we are the only health fund offering just three products options – Gold Hospital, Gold Combined, and Rolling Extras.
Getting the right balance
This helps balance our claiming profile and allows us to provide comprehensive cover at a very competitive price. We’re also the only health fund with a Rollover Benefit – allowing unclaimed annual maximums on most Extras benefits to be rolled over from one calendar year to the next**.
This feature existed well before COVID-19, but helped many members smooth out claiming over the disruptive Covid period without losing benefits.
Eligibility
While we are a restricted-access health fund, our eligibility is broader than most realise. It extends to past and present workers and volunteers within Police, Fire, State Emergency, Water Response and Recovery and Medical Response and recovery ( including anyone registered with the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency (AHPRA)).
Close relations of anyone matching that criteria are also able to take out their own policies with us, and this extends to parents, siblings, adult children, and adult grandchildren.
Read the article
Joel’s final article was published last week in the Sydney Morning Herald, including a nice little shout out to us (Thanks Joel!). Read it here: https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/as-costs-keep-rising-private-health-funds-are-facing-a-new-dilemma-20230214-p5ckdm.html
* IPSOS Healthcare & Insurance Australia Survey 2021; research conducted every 2 years
** Terms & conditions apply.