Union Health insurance

Yes, Union Health does provide cover for emergency ambulance services on their combined policies, but how you’re covered will depend on your state of residence. If you live in a state with an ambulance subscription, you can claim the cost of the subscription under the Health Management category on an eligible extras policy.

If you live in a state that charges an ambulance levy (ACT and New South Wales), ambulance services are covered on your hospital insurance policy. To be covered for ambulance services outside of your state of residence, you may need a combined hospital and extras policy.

Yes, Union Health will cover you for pre-existing conditions, provided you’ve served the relevant waiting periods and the condition is deemed pre-existing. Hospital services relating to a pre-existing condition have a standard waiting period of 12 months across all health funds. This doesn’t include rehabilitation, psychiatric or palliative care, which have a 2-month waiting period regardless.

Having a pre-existing condition won’t affect your waiting periods or eligibility for extras services.

For hospital services, waiting periods are standard across all health funds. That’s 12 months for pre-existing conditions (excluding rehabilitation, psychiatric and palliative care) and pregnancy, and 2 months for everything else.

The waiting periods on extras products will depend on your level of cover and will differ between the services covered. When you switch or upgrade to a Union Health policy, you may not have to re-serve your waiting periods for the same or lower level of cover.

When you’re treated in hospital, and your doctors and specialists agree to charge you under the Access Gap Cover Scheme, they’ll charge Union Health directly, who will then contact you to arrange payment of any excess or out-of-pocket costs.

If your doctor doesn’t participate in the Scheme, you may get billed directly. In that case, you can fill out and submit a claim form by post or email and be reimbursed for your benefit entitlement.

You can usually claim on the spot for extras services at your healthcare provider’s HICAPS or HealthPoint machine. If this option isn’t available, you can also submit a claim online or through Union Health’s smartphone app.

You can choose to pay your Union Health premiums by direct debit either fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or half-yearly. If you choose to pay your premiums six months in advance and your premiums increase during that period, you won’t have to pay any extra until your next payment.

Yes, you will most likely need to pay an excess when you’re admitted to hospital and claim on your health insurance policy. This excess is only payable once per adult per calendar year, and no excess is charged for dependants.

On select policies, you can choose the excess you pay from a range of options. When you choose a lower excess, you will pay a high premium and vice versa. If you don’t think you’ll be admitted to hospital any time soon, you might consider choosing a higher excess and benefit from a reduced premium.

To cancel your Union Health insurance policy, give Union Health a call, and their customer service team will walk you through the cancellation process. However, depending on your reason for cancelling, you might want to consider suspending your cover instead.

When you suspend your health insurance policy, you’re no longer covered and won’t have to pay any premiums. However, you also won’t accrue any days towards the Lifetime Health Cover loading, and you won’t have to re-serve any waiting periods when you resume your Union Health policy. You can suspend your cover for scenarios like overseas travel or financial hardship.