How do I find the best health insurance for dental in Australia? 

If you’ve visited a dentist to improve your smile recently, you might not have been smiling when you went to pay. Dental care in Australia is generally not covered by Medicare, which means it can hurt your hip pocket. Having Extras Cover is one way to eliminate dental bill shock, but often health insurance doesn’t cover 100% of dental treatment costs. So how do you find the best health insurance for dental in Australia, and is it even worth having? 

Is dental treatment free with health insurance? 

Dental treatment is generally not free with health insurance – usually you will face some costs; the amount you’ll pay depends on your policy. Some low-level policies will have lower limits for dental claims, leaving you with a bigger Gap to pay, while high-level Extras Cover policies may have higher or even no limits (depending on the dental treatment). 

Many insurers have partnerships with certain dental practices which means you’ll pay a lower or no Gap, and larger insurers such as Bupa and nib have their own dental clinics where members can get some treatments without a Gap.  

What is a Gap?

What types of dental treatments are covered? 

There are 4 categories of dental treatments covered on Extras Cover policies:  

How much does health insurance for dental cost? 

As a rough guide, we used the healthslips.com.au Calculator to calculate the cost of Extras Cover for one adult in NSW. The cheapest policy that included dental cover was $16 a month, compared with $203.30 a month for the most expensive. But the amount you can claim varies wildly, so make sure you check the policy carefully and don’t rely on the price tag alone to make your decision.   

How much can you claim back on dental cover? 

Some health insurers let you claim back a certain percentage of your dental treatment costs, but others set money limits on the amount you can claim per service and/or per year, or in some cases, per lifetime. The amount you’ll get back depends on your policy, and whether or not the dental practice has an agreement with your insurer.  

Using the healthslips.com.au Calculator, we found the cheapest policy for one adult in NSW covered up to $350 of General Dental treatments per year, with 50% of costs for fluoride treatments, scale and clean, surgical tooth extractions and oral examinations covered. Major Dental, Endodontic and Orthodontic treatments were not covered at all. 

The most expensive policy had no annual limits for General Dental, however fluoride treatments were capped at $31.50, scale and clean at $75.50, surgical tooth extraction at $120 and oral examination at $37.50 per service. In Major Dental and Endodontic, there was a combined limit of $1,200 per year, with the maximum paid for a full crown veneer being $1,200 and a root canal $255. Orthodontic had a $1,400 yearly limit and a $2,800 lifetime limit.

Does Extras Cover include braces and Invisalign? 

Yes, braces and Invisalign (clear retainers) are covered under the Orthodontics category of Extras Cover, but this is usually only available on top-level cover. Longer waiting periods generally apply for Orthodontics, and insurers will only cover a small proportion of costs, so read your policy conditions carefully. 

How do I find the best health insurance for dental in Australia? 

The healthslips.com.au Calculator can help you find the best health insurance for dental treatments that matches your budget. You can use it to compare every Extras policy in Australia in less than 60 seconds, and because there’s no commercial bias, you can trust the results. Try the healthslips.com.au Calculator to find a new policy or compare your existing Extras policy to others. You don’t have to provide your contact details, and it’s free to use.  

If you already have Extras Cover and want to switch to a different policy, you won’t have to serve waiting periods again if your new policy is at the same level. But if you’re upgrading your cover, new waiting periods might apply – check with your insurer. 

Once you’ve found the best dental cover policy for you, you can smile a little wider. Fun fact: people who have health insurance with dental are more likely to visit a dentist, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows, which means better, healthier smiles all round. And since good dental care is linked to good overall health, that can only be a good thing. 

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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