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Written by
Madeline Pettet
Edited by
Laura Crowden
Reviewed by
Andres GutierrezCheck out our range of private health funds
iSelect does not compare all providers in the market or all policies offered by our partners in your area. Not all policies or special offers are available to all customers and some may only be available over the phone or on the website. Learn more.
What is family health cover?
When you’re talking about cover for kids, you’re often referring to family health cover. This is one policy that covers the whole family, whatever shape yours takes. For instance, if you’re a super parent wrangling kids on your own, there’s single parent family cover. Whether it’s hospital, extras, or both, you all share the same level of cover. Family health cover can streamline your health insurance if you have kids or are planning to start a family soon.
Are children under 18 years old automatically covered?
Children aren’t automatically added to your policy (you’ll need to do this when you sign up or switch) but they don’t generally cost you any extra. This means that a family policy often costs the same as a couples policy.
Did you know?
As a general rule of thumb, it doesn’t matter if you have one kid covered or a dozen; kids don’t tend to incur an additional premium on your family policy.
Once you add your kids to your family policy, they’ll remain covered at least until they turn 18 (assuming you stick with the policy), or even a few years older with some funds. Plus, if you’ve already served the waiting period on your family policy and add your child within a specified time after their birth, they may not need to serve a waiting period. Instead, they’ll be covered right away.
How much does a family health policy cost?
Your family policy premium will depend on a couple of things, like the cover you pick and what state you live in. What won’t affect it though is how many children you have on it.
Of course, other factors can affect your premium. For instance, changing your level of cover or switching policy types, like moving from a singles policy to a family one, could mean your premium changes. Additionally, annual health insurance premium increases may also change what you pay.
The charts show the average cost of a single-parent or family policy with kids throughout Australia as of October 2024, breaking them down by hospital, extras, and combined cover.
Scroll through our handy price graphs to see the costs in your state.
Is private health insurance worth it for kids?
While our public healthcare system is certainly something Australians can be proud of, opting to go private can come with plenty of benefits.
Find flexibility to suit your family as it grows and changes
For starters, family health cover offers you plenty of options to look after your kids and tailor your whole family’s coverage as you get older. For instance, you might want hospital cover when your kids are little to give greater choice – and possibly shorter wait times – for common procedures like grommets, tonsillectomies, and broken bones. Some funds also waive hospital excess for kids, no matter how many times they go into hospital. Plus, a higher level of hospital cover may come in handy if you’re intending to add a few more kids to your brood as well.
Then, as you leave nappies and prams behind you, and your kids start going to school, you may want more extras cover. Things like dental and orthodontics aren’t covered under Medicare. So, if your child needs a little help straightening their smile, you could be left to stump up for braces on your own if you don’t have health insurance. Similarly, if your child lives and breathes sports, extras cover that includes physio might come in handy.
While these kinds of extras can sometimes be provided to kids through government programs, your child may not always meet eligibility requirements. So, without private health insurance, you might be left on your own to foot the whole bill for costly dental check-ups, new glasses and more.
Get extra benefits that make parenting a little easier
Along with hospital cover and extras, your private health insurance may include additional items that really come in handy, like prenatal and postnatal services.
Access potentially shorter wait times so everyone can feel better sooner
Health insurance could also make your family more comfortable when one or more of you is dealing with health issues. For instance, you may be able to secure a shorter wait for any necessary ‘elective’ surgeries that you or your kids need. Kids can struggle to manage a condition that leaves them feeling unwell or makes every day tricky. On the flip side, it can be hard to be a parent at the best of times; no one wants to be doing it when they don’t feel great. Those shorter wait times in the private hospital system might save your family plenty of stress and strain.
Have a private room when it’s time to recover
Similarly, with hospital cover you and your family may be able to get a private room while in hospital. This can help kids feel a little less scared in a strange environment, as well as give your family plenty of space to support one another.
Skip the Medicare Levy Surcharge
Choosing to get family health cover could even just make sense for your tax. Depending on your combined income, having an appropriate level of private hospital cover could mean you don’t need to pay the Medicare Levy Surcharge.
Helpful tip
With family health cover, you aren’t just sharing cover. You may also be sharing limits. If everyone in your family has similar healthcare needs, this may not be too much of an issue. However, if someone requires specific services, like lots of general or major dental, it may mean that the limits get reached before everyone has had a chance to go to the dentist for a check-up.
How long can children over 18 stay covered?
Different funds and policies have different age limits and restrictions for older kids – also known as adult dependents. For instance, adult kids could be covered under your family policy right up until they’re 31, but depending on the fund, they may need to be single, or currently studying full time (or both!)
How do I pick a health insurance policy for my kids and myself?
It might help to think about your needs as individuals and then as a family. For instance, will you all be needing to visit a dentist regularly for check-ups? What about getting new glasses?
Remember, health needs will likely change again in the future. If you don’t intend on having any more kids, you might be happy to leave a gold tier hospital policy for something with a little less cover (and less expensive!) Alternatively, if you’ve discovered long-distance cycling is your special me-time ritual you can’t live without, you may want to keep the gold hospital policy (or switch to silver plus!) in case you ever need to get a knee replacement.
Once you’ve found a policy you like, it’s simply a matter of signing yourself and the family up.
How do I add my child to my health insurance policy?
If you already have family cover and you’d like to add a child to it, it’s pretty straightforward. You’ll just need to get in touch with your insurer and let them know you’d like your child to be included on the policy.
If you’re adding a newborn, you may want to be aware that your insurer could ask for them to be added within their first year. When exactly the cutoff is can depend on the policy. Regardless, getting them listed on your policy within the specified timeframe can mean bub avoids having to serve waiting periods.
How do I upgrade from a couples policy to a family policy?
If you already have a singles or couples policy, your insurer may offer a family upgrade. This is essentially a family policy that offers the same kinds of benefits as your previous singles or couples one. You’ll just need to let your insurer know that you want to switch and to add your child to the policy too. Remember, your premium may change as a result of the upgrade.
Depending on what your insurer has on offer, you might not be able to move onto a family version of your existing policy. Instead, you might need to look at what other family options are available, including from different insurers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. If you’ve recently had a baby or your family is growing up, now may be an excellent time to re-examine your cover and re-evaluate what you’d like to get out of it.
If you’re looking to move to a family policy because you have a baby on the way, your insurer may require you to make the switch before the baby comes. It may need to be as far out as 12 months before your baby is born.
Can I get health insurance for just my child?
Child-only health insurance policies are rare, but you may still be able to find one. They can be an option for non-traditional families, like if you’re looking to cover your grandchild.
If you’re looking for cover for your child, at the end of the day, it may be better value for you to pick up a single parent or family policy and get yourself and your child covered. After all, part of looking after your child is making sure you look after yourself too!
Where can I find and compare health insurance?
Whether you’ve just started your family or you’ve been a solid unit for years, family health insurance can be a way to help look after your nearest and dearest. Of course, finding the time to sit down and look at health insurance when there’s sports games to go to, lunches to pack, and missing hats to find is tough. But with iSelect it’s easy. You can use our online health insurance comparison tool or speak with one of our health comparison experts on 1800 784 772 to compare a range of options.
Health Insurance & Tax
Tax Implications on Health Insurance
How to save on Health Insurance
About the Medicare Levy Surcharge
About the Life Time Health Cover Loading
Government Rebate & Means Testing
iSelect does not compare all health insurance providers or policies in the market. The availability of policies will change from time to time. Not all policies available from its providers are compared by iSelect and due to commercial arrangements, your stated needs and circumstances, not all policies compared by iSelect are available to all customers. Some policies and special offers are available only from iSelect’s contact centre or website. Click here to view iSelect’s range of providers