Health insurance: what we cover

Every private health insurance policy open to new members, as insurers filed it with the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman, priced for your state and household.

The policies compared

Every policy open to new members that a registered health insurer filed with the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman: 57,855 statements across 32 health funds in the release of 1 Oct 2026. A statement is one policy for one state and one household at one excess; the list folds a policy's excess options and dependant variants into one card and shows the variant your answers select.

4 of the 32 funds file on their own and are part of another insurer, as the dataset describes them: Queensland Country Health Fund (HBF), RT Health (HCF), ahm (Medibank) and see-u by HBF (HBF). The Ombudsman's State of the Health Funds Report counts them with their insurers. Each card and this site's filters use the name a fund trades under; its registered name as filed is on every policy page and in the table below.

Hospital and extras: each hospital policy is paired with the same insurer's lowest-premium extras policy that covers general dental, optical and physiotherapy (choose other services under Must cover), the two premiums added, as the insurer's own quote does. An insurer's own hospital-and-extras policy is listed as filed.

Left out

• Corporate policies, sold through employers (21,749 statements in this release): a person cannot buy them directly.
• Policies closed to new members.
• Policies that cover children only.
• Members-only funds, unless you include them: Some funds take only members of a group: defence, police, teachers, a company's staff. They show when you include them, each with its own rule.

The ACT is priced as New South Wales: insurers file one premium for both.

How the figure is worked out

Monthly premium: the premium the insurer filed with the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman for this state, household and excess, before the Australian Government rebate. Answer the income and age questions and every figure becomes the premium after your rebate, with any Lifetime Health Cover loading added to the hospital share (the rebate never applies to the loading) and the age-based discount taken off it where the policy offers one. Insurers may quote a different payment frequency and round each step; check the figure with the insurer before you join.

The figures start after the base-tier rebate, which most people get and which every insurer's own quote assumes; choose your income band under About you for your own tier, or see premiums before the rebate. The rebate tiers and income thresholds are the Australian Government's (privatehealth.gov.au), kept with the period each applies to; the Medicare Levy Surcharge bands are the same four. The age-based discount is 2% for each year a person is under 30 when they take out hospital cover, up to 10% at 18 to 25, where the insurer offers it. The Lifetime Health Cover loading is 2% for each year over 30 on the 1 July before joining, at most 70%, on the hospital share only: the list works it out from your age when you say you have had no hospital cover since the 1 July after turning 31, or takes the loading you know.

What this page does not do

LookFirst does not say which tier or policy suits you. The filters are your own questions. No insurer pays to appear on this list or for its place in it. No savings are claimed. Waiting periods already served with another insurer are a matter for the new insurer; the list shows each policy's own waiting periods as filed.

The insurers

Counts are statements open to new members in the release of 1 Oct 2026; a policy filed for every state counts once.

Member retention (hospital cover)

Each open insurer's hospital and hospital-and-extras cards carry one figure the Commonwealth Ombudsman publishes for it, under the Ombudsman's own name for it: Member retention (hospital cover), from the State of the Health Funds Report 2024-25 (data at 30 June 2025, report dated March 2026). It is shown as published, with its year and a link, and the list is not sorted, filtered or ranked by it. Extras-only cards show none: the figure is for hospital memberships.

The report publishes per insurer, so a brand shows its insurer's figure under the insurer's name. Members-only funds show none: the report lists them as a separate group and says most of them rate well on this measure compared with open insurers, which it says may be due to features particular to them, especially their links with employment (page 12).

Member retention is the Commonwealth Ombudsman's figure, from its State of the Health Funds Report 2024-25. Source: Licensed from the Commonwealth Ombudsman under a Creative Commons 4.0 licence. This report is available from the Commonwealth Ombudsman website at www.ombudsman.gov.au.

The data

Policy details come from the PrivateHealth.gov.au dataset published by the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman on data.gov.au (release of 1 Oct 2026), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia. https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/private-health-insurance. The release is read monthly; nothing is retyped.