Why empty nest health cover might be right for you

When your kids leave home, it can mean more time and money for you to travel or take up a new hobby. On the other hand, you might experience a sense of loss now your parenting days are over. While you ease into this next life stage, it’s important to check in on your health cover and rethink your needs.

There are many health insurance policies that cater for people who no longer have children, so it might be time to switch off family cover. This may include reviewing what you’re currently covered for, comparing empty nest cover policies, and looking into dropping or adding relevant extras.

Why you should consider empty nest health cover

Most importantly, you’ll want to make adjustments to your health cover to make sure it’s not geared towards caring for a family. You may be able to remove certain services from your hospital and extras, potentially saving yourself money for cover that’s no longer necessary.

There are many procedures that health cover plans exclude to save on premiums. You may want to make sure that you’re covered for procedures more likely to be required as you age, which may be listed as exclusions on your policy.

Now that you’re no longer financially supporting your children, you may also have money spare for relevant extras that are designed to keep you fit and healthy for years to come.

Services you might drop from your private health insurance

When you’re looking to save on your health cover while moving into the empty nester stage of life, consider services you might be able to drop. For example, are you still covered for pregnancy and reproductive services? At this point, you’re unlikely to need pregnancy cover. Ditching it could equate to savings.

Some extras might have been added as part of a family policy that’s no longer needed as well. Did you have orthodontics when the kids needed braces? That will no longer be necessary. Were there other extras like speech therapy or podiatry added specifically for your family’s needs? You’re probably ready to drop these as well.

Understanding health cover for adult children

Are your kids still covered under your policy, and do you want them to be? The rules around dependants vary with different policies, but it’s a good idea to get your head around how insurance cover tends to classify adult children.

In general, insurers tend to put children into three categories, Student Dependant, Adult Dependant or Independent Adult. Student dependants are children who are single, aged 21-25 and studying full time, may be living at home or away. Many family policies will automatically cover this category. Once your children are over 25, they are considered Independent Adults. At that point, they must take out their own policies.

However, Adult Dependants fall somewhere in between. They’re single, aged 21-25 and not studying. Usually, family policies don’t cover this category, but do offer an “extended family” option to pay an additional fee to continue their cover.

If your children fall into this third category, you may want to check how your policy treats them and talk to your insurer if you’d like them to be covered.

Extras you might want to add to your empty nesters cover

With age comes wisdom, but also an increase in physical ailments. Hip and knee replacements are common as we age, but they’re also very expensive and have long waiting lists in the public system. Private health insurance tends to exclude these procedures as well as other services to keep costs down. This is a good time to review and evaluate your cover, keeping exclusions in mind.

Begin making the switch

Once you’ve dropped some parts of your cover that are no longer needed, it’s time to look at what might be smart to add. Certain extras such as optometry, hearing aids, pharmacy, physio and chiro aren’t completely covered by the public health system, and will become very useful if you plan to take care of your body for years to come.

Call us at iSelect to discuss empty nester health cover on 13 19 20.

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