👉 Background: In Australia, there are more than 30 private health insurers (think: Medibank, NIB, Bupa), who provide products to over 15 million  Australians.

👉 What happened: The Health Minister has warned that there will be an increase of more than 3 per cent on average to the premiums of private health insurers, starting in April.

• Bupa's premium will go up by 3.61%
• HCF's premium is up 2.89%
• NIB, the whopper, is up 4.1%

This will be the largest annual increase in private health costs since 2019.

👉 What else: Total health insurance payouts increased 10.4% in the year ended last September. So, the private health industry reckons it wasn't possible to maintain the lower premium increases of recent years.

What's the key learning?

💡Health insurance premiums is the ongoing payments made to your insurer to keep your health insurance policy active. Think of it like a subscription fee that helps cover the cost of your medical expenses that aren't fully covered by Medicare.

💡These premiums are set by the insurance who analyse historical data to predict risks and set premiums high enough to cover any claims, expenses, and ensure profit.

💡So it's no surprise that the health insurance sector's net profit more than doubled last financial year to $2.19 billion. But sadly, that didn’t stop Australia’s health insurers from raising premium rates this time around.

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