Why are my health insurance premiums going up?

We've had a few queries recently about why health cover premiums continue to increase, so we thought we'd shared these insights with you.

What is a premium?
A premium is the amount of money you pay for your health insurance. It reflects the cost of health treatments, the number of claims that are made, and the management of your policy by your health insurer.

What affects the cost of premiums?
Premiums are affected by the rising number and cost of health insurance claims. The impacts are increased costs for treatment and medical equipment, a greater range of procedures available, and increases in the number of procedures performed.

Premiums are also infuenced by other factors, such as whether you smoke, your gender and your age.

Some examples of common procedures and the increase in both frequency and cost of the past 10 years are as follows:
      

• The frequency of chemotherapy procedures has increased by 715% and radiology procedures by 147%
• The cost of hip replacements has increased from $13,783 to $21,018 (52% increase)
• And the removal of simple skin lesion has increased from an average of $742 to $2,214 (198%) 

However regardless of increasing costs, what's more important to understand, and know, is what plan you have in place to protect yourself and loved ones in the event of sickness and illness. 

For more information, give us a call on 0508 THE MARSHALL (0508 843 627).