Private Health Cover

[Radders]

Sorry if this has been covered; has anyone purchased health insurance?
MY wife and I are both currently covered through work, and will be covered by our travel insurance when we first arrive in NZ, but will need to sort something out eventually.
Any prices/advice gratefully recieved

[Robert]

The price you pay will depend on many factors, including your age and past medical history.
You can also get a huge discount if you accept a large excess on your policy.
We pay $80 per month for 2 healthy adults under 40 and 5 young kids with a $500 excess covering hospital and specialist investigation only.
You can pay up to $350 per month if you include GP visits in the insurance.

Do be sure that the policy you purchase will cover the FULL cost of hospital care (other than the excess) some will cover only a percentage or have very low limits on claims. Also be sure to declare anything that might be considered a pre-existing condition or they won't pay out.

For young adults and children, most procedures are either an emergency (and so done expediently on the public system anyway) or are due to trauma and paid for by ACC.

See also copious other postings on the same subject and the excellent article recently posted on this website.

[karltsmith]

ABSTRACT OF LINKS FROM MY THREAD..THE ROUGH WITH THE SMOOTH (on the old forum)

http://www.healthinsurance.co.nz/

http://www.southerncross.co.nz/

http://www.affordable-health.co.nz/h...ew-zealand.asp

http://www.tourism.org.nz/health-med...insurance.html

http://www.uni-care.org/

http://www.planahead.co.nz/health-insurance.htm

http://www.totalcareinsurance.com/

http://www.yellowpages.co.nz/all-cat...rance-medical/

http://www.4nzhealth.co.nz/about.htm

http://www.petc.ac.nz/international/...insurance.html

http://sovereign.co.nz

[Tara Sage]

Can anyone recommend one of these health insurance companies?

Are they all much the same or are there any that are particularly good value for money?

[Robert]

All the health insurance companies are pretty good. In a recent consumer survey, even the least satisfactory company was rated as good or excellent by over 80% of respondents.

Value unfortunately depends upon your own values.

As I have said before, read the small print before you sign up and make sure you have a policy that covers what you need.

Best value for most is probably represented by a hospital and specialist test policy which leaves you paying only a smallish excess and GP visit fees but covers operations and outpatient investigations.

In the end I got advice from a financial advisor, all for free, and was able to choose from several policy options with various excess levels. He was also pleased to offer advice as to which option he felt would suit best (in the end we disagreed but that was no problem!)
A word of warning though, these people can be very intrusive and will pester you a fair bit unless you ask them not to.