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How To Save Money on Health Insurance

How To Save Money on Health Insurance
Carly Jacobs
This post is sponsored by Private Health Public Benefit

Truth bomb: It’s kind of impossible to avoid wasting money. No matter how much you research something and how much you think you need that thing in your life, sometimes you’re going to make terrible purchasing decisions.

Take for instance my recent delve into the land of making my own kefir. For those of you that don’t know what it is, it’s a fermented yogurt drink that’s good for your gut bacteria. I was buying pre-made bottles of it when I found out you can make it yourself at home and it’s much cheaper. I paid $20 for a teeny tiny bag of fermented kefir grains and set about making kefir. There was a WHOLE process that involved slowly making them active until you finally made drinkable kefir. You have to make it every day or every second day to keep the grains active and if you went away for a while there was a process of storing the magical grains in the fridge and then re-activating them when you got home. In short, it was a lot of effort for very little reward. It never really tasted quite right and after a month of carefully monitoring this tepid jar of gluey kefir that was permanently cluttering up my kitchen bench and wasting litres of milk, I gave up. It wasn’t my bag.

Health Insurance

Even though I only wasted about $30 on the whole project I was still a bit annoyed. I’d read so many blog posts and articles about how ‘easy’ it was to ferment your own kefir and I thought really carefully about it before I went into it. I just really, really hate wasting money.

But you know what? So does everyone. I’m teaming up with Private Health Public Benefit to bring you some tips on how to save money on health insurance. 

There’s also a competition to go into a draw to win $200 a week and a major prize of $2000… keep reading if you’d like it in your wallet.

Unfortunately, Mr Smaggle is not a very well person. He has sinus problems, cluster headaches, migraines and his surgeon told him a few years ago his face isn’t big enough for all the stuff inside it which basically means he’s going to have sinus, migraine and dental issues for the rest of his life. Yay us. In 2016 he had to get elective nose/throat surgery and there was a two-year waiting list to get the surgery done in the public system. He’s a business owner and calculated that if he worked for two years in severe pain waiting for the surgery he’d lose thousands of dollars in productivity and days off work that he wouldn’t be paid for. We did all the calculations and figured out it was best to get private health insurance and have the surgery as early as possible. That was over two years ago now and we still have the same cover as he has a lot of dental work that needs doing and it’s cheaper to do that through health insurance. The added bonus of taking out cover is that if we didn’t do so before we turned 31, we would be liable to pay the  Medicare Levy Surcharge. 

Here are a few tips for saving money on health costs…

  1. Do your research – don’t just read one online article and think all the information in it is correct. Get information from a variety of different resources and get the cover that works for you. Check out lots of different comparison sites and also, ask your friends and family. I’ve found friend recommendations to be pretty ace when it comes to health care.
  1. Whip out your calculator – do the calculations. Don’t just assume that something is better value because you saw a random report on TV. Actually weigh up the pros and cons of your options using actual data that’s applicable to you. Yes, numbers are boring but it’s worth it, in the long run, to make sure you’re not wasting money.
  1. Make sure you choose the right policy for your life stage. Circumstances change and therefore your cover needs to change – this includes having children, long and short-term illnesses and things like ongoing dental work. You can tailor your private health cover extras to your lifestyle, meaning you are covered for the services you need most.

If you want to go into the draw to win $200 a week and win a major prize of $2000, click here to submit your story about why you value your private health insurance. 

How do you save money on health insurance? Any tips to share?

P.S Also you should totally sign up for my newsletter. It’s full of cool stuff.

2 Comments

  1. Michaela 6 years ago

    Wow, the healthcare system in Australia must be very, very different than the situation in the U.S. right now – where a lot of people don’t even qualify for government “public” insurance and private health plans (if you don’t have some kind of buy in option with an employer) are crazy expensive and can cost people thousands of dollars in premiums. A month. And let’s not even talk about co-pays. *shudders in terror*

    I don’t have any health insurance. If I get sick or end up injured – goddess forbid – I’d be up shit creek. A simple trip to the ER could set a person back $5,000 easily if they don’t have insurance or a plan that covers emergency costs. At least Planned Parenthood does affordable check-ups so if I ever suspected I need one desperately, at least I know it won’t cost me more than a month’s worth of rent….

    We’re in need of serious reform. Got any tips for that? 🙂

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 6 years ago

      It’s extremely different and even then it’s not as good as the UK. Our system is very good but it definitley needs a few tweaks. Like if you’re unemployed or a low income earner you’re totally covered, everything is free. It’s when you earn decent money or are over the age of 30 when things get complicated. The US health care system terrifies me. We’ve considered spending a year or two in the US just for fun (because we work from home) but health care is a big concern for us and one of the reasons we keep putting it off.

      I have one tip for you – don’t vote for Trump. 🙂

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