Why Its Worth Upgrading Your 457 Visa Health Insurance

Health Insurance is termed by marketers a ‘grudge purchase’!

Generally, most people globally don’t want to purchase it and most end up taking out a policy for tax reasons, company reasons or for peace of mind.
This is especially true for 457 visa health insurance as its a compulsory element of a 457 visa application.
As such, the majority of individuals, families and couples take out the cheapest 457 health insurance possible without questioning the if the more expensive policies add extra value!

For a comparison, I’m going to look at the two cheapest policies in both categories which are IMAN.

• Their budget policy costs $79.99 per month
• Their value plus policy costs $90 per month.

So its about $10 per month extra which is $120 a year.

Now when I look at the IMAN website the key difference between the two is that ‘value plus’ covers services such as GP’s, pathology & specialists.
On closer inspection what this means is that if you see a doctor (eg GP), IMAN will pay the Medical Benefit Schedule (MBS) amount that the Australian public receive when seeing the same individuals.
If you look at the table below you will see some MBS rates (published at racpg.org.au. While is has there that a ‘level a’ visit is received $16.60, as an Australin I can tell you most GP’s will charge at least a Level B attendance. Based on this, if you see a GP twice a year you will have almost paid off the difference!

Now consider if you needed to see a specialist such a dermatologist. Their MBS rates are a lot higher and there is a good chance this could exceed the difference.
Its important to also consider that most people get more sick when working overseas due to different climates, flu strains, environments etc.

Based on the above, the $120 extra for a good proportion of individuals will be excellent value and is strongly recommended.