What’s the best Basic health insurance? 

If you want Hospital Cover that provides the bare essentials, Basic Hospital Cover could be your best bet. You’ll need to do your homework, though, as some Basic health insurance policies don’t provide much in the way of value – and they aren’t necessarily cheap, either. Using the healthslips.com.au Calculator, we found a $2,772.72 difference per year between the cheapest and most expensive Combined Hospital and Extras Basic policies.  

As the experts on health insurance, we at healthslips.com.au are well-equipped to help you find the best Basic health insurance for you at the best price. Here’s what you need to know. 

What’s the cheapest Basic health insurance? 

We used the healthslips.com.au Calculator to calculate Combined Hospital and Extras Basic Cover for 2 adults in NSW. Here’s what we found: 

While the prices varied significantly, the difference in cover level for hospital treatments was marginal. Both policies covered only 3 of 38 clinical categories (hospital services) at restricted levels, but the more expensive one also included cover for travel and accommodation for hospital treatments. The Extras Cover was markedly different, however, with the cheaper policy covering only 9 of 27 treatments while the more expensive policy covered 22 treatments.  

Both policies include Ambulance Cover but the cheaper policy does not include non-emergency ambulance treatment.  

If you want more coverage than Basic policies provide, but your budget doesn’t stretch to Bronze cover, you could consider a Basic Plus policy.  

What’s the best Basic Plus policy?

How do I find the best Bronze policy?

How do you find the best Basic Hospital Cover? 

To find the best and cheapest Basic health insurance for you, click on the healthslips.com.au Calculator, which will search every policy on the market to give you completely unbiased results. Best of all, it’s free to use and you don’t have to enter your contact details to get the results – and there’s no pressure to buy any policies since we don’t sell insurance.  

If you’re thinking of going to a higher level of cover than Basic, the healthslips.com.au Calculator allows you to compare up to 10 policies across different tiers of Hospital Cover (Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold), so you can find out which policy gives you the best cover for the best price and your stage of life. If you use the ‘Show differences’ button, it’s super easy to see how each policy is different, taking the headaches out of health insurance shopping. We can’t tell you which policy to choose, but with the unbiased results from our Calculator, you’ve got all the tools you need to make a good decision. 

Try the healthslips.com.au Calculator today.

Trudie McConnochie

Writer and Researcher

Knowledge is power – that’s the guiding principle behind everything Trudie writes, and it’s a philosophy she brings to her work at healthslips.com.au. By breaking down complex information into easy-to-understand blogs and stories, she aims to empower Australians to make the best choices and an informed decision around private health insurance.

Trudie understands firsthand some of the complexity of private health insurance having moved to Australia from New Zealand and having to navigate a vastly different public healthcare system and health insurance structure.

Trudie holds a Bachelor of Communication Studies (journalism major) from the Auckland University of Technology.

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