Top Tips for Choosing the Best Health Insurance for Your Family

Written by Kelly+Partners Team | 24 April 2025

Take outs:

Family cover provides quicker access to private healthcare for all family members, reducing wait times and covering costs for treatments, physiotherapy, and hospital stays.
Family policies can help reduce out-of-pocket costs and may offer tax benefits, such as avoiding the Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS) and qualifying for the Private Health Insurance Rebate based on household income.
It’s important to assess your family’s healthcare needs, including Hospital and Extras Cover, and compare policies for limits, excesses, and potential gaps. Ensure coverage extends to all dependants.

Top Tips for Choosing the Best Health Insurance for Your Family

Kids keep you on your toes with their adventurous spirit, boundless energy, and endless curiosity. But sometimes, this means you might find yourself more familiar with the local emergency room than you'd like. That’s where having private health insurance for your family can make a real difference when you need it most. We all want what's best for our kids, and when they’re sick or injured, this means quicker access to medical treatment, specialist consultations, and even private hospital rooms. It also helps reduce wait times that might occur in the public system and covers out-of-pocket expenses for treatments, physiotherapy, or ongoing care needed after an injury.

Since child-only health insurance is not widely available, many parents opt for Family cover to ensure the entire household is protected against injuries and illnesses. However, Family health insurance policies can vary significantly in price, so it’s important to shop around for the best deal.

Here’s what you need to consider when choosing the best health insurance for families in Australia.

What is Family cover?

We used the healthslips.com.au calculator to run the numbers, as it compares every policy from every insurer—with no commercial bias and free, open access to results. In the table below, you'll see a clear example: when we calculated the cheapest Family policy in Queensland, the price range for Family health cover varied significantly.

Image credit: Combined Hospital and Extras Cover in QLD, excess up to $750, including open and restricted insurers. Healthslips.com.au.
https://www.healthslips.com.au/blog/what-is-the-best-health-insurance-for-aussie-families

What are the benefits of Family cover?

A key benefit of family policies can be the ability to share the limit across all members, which can be helpful if one person has higher needs in a specific area, such as orthodontic treatments.

There may also be financial benefits to having private health insurance. If your family income exceeds $194,000, Hospital Cover can help you avoid the Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS) at tax time.

Additionally, if your household income is $302,000 or less, you might qualify for the Private Health Insurance Rebate, which can reduce your premiums by up to 32.385%. This income threshold increases by $1,500 for each child after the first, so it’s a good idea to check your eligibility for the Rebate.

Choosing the best health insurance for your family

Is ambulance treatment free in your state?

In Australia, ambulance services vary by state, impacting both your health and finances. In Queensland and Tasmania, ambulance services are free for residents. However, in other states and territories, you may need to pay unless you're covered by specific health insurance or a state program.

Ambulance bills can be expensive, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the distance and type of treatment. It's crucial to know whether you need separate coverage for ambulance services, as being unaware could lead to unexpected bills.

To avoid financial surprises and ensure you're covered in an emergency, check your health insurance plan or subscribe to a state scheme. Being informed upfront helps you stay prepared when you need it most.

When reviewing policies for you, your partner, and your children, it’s important to check the policy limits, excesses, and gaps. Some insurers offer no excess for children, while others provide no-gap dental policies for kids.

What is a Gap?

A gap is the difference between what your private health insurance fund covers and what the healthcare provider (like a doctor, hospital, or specialist) charges for a service. For example, if a doctor charges $150 for a consultation, and your health insurance fund covers $120, the remaining $30 is the gap, which you will need to pay out-of-pocket.

Gaps can apply to various medical services, including hospital stays, surgeries, and specialists' consultations.

What is the difference between Hospital and Extras Cover?

Hospital Cover provides coverage for medical treatments that require you to stay in a hospital, such as surgeries, emergency treatment, and overnight stays. It helps cover the costs of your hospital accommodation, surgeon fees, and any associated medical services, depending on your policy.

Extras Cover helps with the costs of services outside of hospital care, like dental, optical, physiotherapy, chiropractic, and some alternative therapies. This cover is typically for out-of-hospital treatments and is designed to reduce the cost of everyday healthcare services.

In short, Hospital Cover helps with hospital-related expenses, while Extras Cover covers a wide range of non-hospital services. Many people choose to combine both types of cover to ensure comprehensive health protection.

Compare your health insurance policy with others on the market, or calculate a new policy.

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This article was inspired by the article from Kelly+Partners client, healthslips.com.au, a platform that allows Australians to compare every health insurance policy from every health insurer. The service provides a comparison of all available policies across Australia, offering tools such as calculators to determine the cost of a new policy, compare existing policies, and calculate the Government Rebates, age-based Discounts, and Lifetime Health Cover Loading.

https://www.healthslips.com.au/blog/what-is-the-best-health-insurance-for-aussie-families

If you would like to discuss your insurance needs, please get in touch today.

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