Health cover that suits your needs

Compare our hospital and extras insurance products. We have affordable health cover options that may suit your needs and budget.

Do you need hospital, extras or both?

Health cover is just an umbrella term for two types of health insurance—Hospital cover and extras cover. Find out what you need with this quick guide.

Hospital cover

Covers you when you’re admitted to hospital, and will help pay for things like specialist fees, accommodation and theatre fees.

View hospital cover

Extras cover

Covers a bunch of everyday health care services Medicare generally doesn’t, like dental, glasses and physio.

View extras cover

Combined hospital and extras

If you’d like cover for hospital and extras, you can mix and match our products to create your own combined health cover.

Build your own cover

Find the right hospital and extras cover for you


Choose a life stage to see popular hospital and extras cover options.
Or, you can compare all cover options

Basic Hospital Plus & Basic Extras

Low cost hospital cover for the basics, combined with extras cover for 7 services including General Dental, Optical, Physio and more.

Each person covered gets their own annual limits for extras.

Basic Hospital Plus Elevate & Flex 50

Affordable hospital cover for a selection of commonly used treatments, combined with flexible extras cover that gives 50% or more back on 14 popular services.

Each person covered gets their own annual limits for extras.


Cover to suit your needs

Tell us a little about yourself, and in 3 minutes we'll find our best cover to suit your needs.

Finder Health Insurance Awards 2023 - Best Health Fund of the Year

Best Health Fund of the Year 2023

HBF won Finder's Best Health Fund of the Year award.

Why you can trust HBF with your health cover

Stay in a private room

All our Hospital cover options include cover for a private room at a private or public hospital1.

Have your loved one stay with you

If you need someone to stay with you while you’re in hospital, we’ll cover the cost of their meals and accommodation2.

Avoid the Medicare Levy Surcharge

Taking out any one our Hospital cover options will help you avoid the Medicare Levy Surcharge tax.

Higher annual limits for loyal members

On most of our Extras cover options, we reward our loyal members by increasing the amount you can claim the longer you stay with us3 4.

Scale and clean

100% back on your first scale and clean each year5.

Unlimited urgent ambulance

Urgent ambulance cover by road for as many trips as you need. Available on most Hospital and Extras cover options3.

HBF health members also get access to great discounts and health programs

  • Join the gym for less with discounts on gym membership6
  • Work out in style with discounts on fitness apparel6
  • We’ll help you get well with telephone health coaching and other free health programs7
  • Say goodbye to sniffles with a fully covered flu vaccination every year8

We’re here to help you get more value from your cover

Understand how your cover works and how to get the most out of it with tips and tools, plus exclusive member offers

4 signs you should update your health cover
Learn more

Switching to HBF is as easy as 1, 2, 3

Switching health funds is easier than you think. Follow these three simple steps to switch to HBF in just a few minutes.

  1. Choose health cover that suits your needs.
  2. Buy your health cover online. If you’d prefer to chat, visit your local branch or call 133 423.
  3. Tell us the name of your old insurer and we’ll do the switching paperwork for you.

Switch to HBF

Woman holding an ice cream cone

What is health insurance?

Also known as Health cover, Health insurance is an umbrella term for the two types of insurance that can help cover your healthcare costs: Hospital insurance and Extras insurance.

With HBF, you can buy either one by themselves, or mix and match a Hospital and Extras product to create your own health cover.

See our explained section for a more in-depth look into private health insurance.

You can also get insurance just for ambulance.

What is hospital insurance?

Also known as Hospital cover, Hospital insurance helps cover costs when you’re admitted to hospital. It covers things like your doctors’ fees, accommodation and theatre fees.

Hospital insurance is what you need to avoid the tax (Medicare Levy Surcharge) and the turning-31 thing (Lifetime Health Cover loading).

Learn more about hospital cover

What is extras insurance?

Also known as Ancillary cover or Extras cover, Extras insurance helps cover the cost of everyday healthcare services—that’s for things like dental check-ups, physio appointments and glasses or contacts.

Extras insurance does not help you avoid the Medicare Levy Surcharge tax; for that, you need Hospital insurance.

Learn more about extras cover

Who does health insurance cover?

You can get health cover for yourself, you and your partner, or for your whole family. Generally, there are four categories of membership:

  • 1 adult (Single)
  • 2 adults (Couple)
  • 2 adults and any number of dependants* (Family)
  • 1 adult and any number of dependants* (Single Parent)

*A dependant is a child on a family or single parent policy who is under 25 years of age and not married or in a de-facto relationship. If this person is 21 years of age or over, they must either be studying full time or earn less than $24,500 per year.

Is there pregnancy and birth cover with no waiting period?

No, unfortunately there isn’t. Most health funds, including HBF, have a 12-month waiting period for pregnancy and birth cover. This helps stop people from signing up for health cover, claiming and leaving soon after, which drives up premiums for all other members of the health fund.

What is a not-for-profit health fund?

There are two types of health funds: not-for-profit and for-profit. A not-for-profit health fund, like HBF, uses the money it accumulates through premiums to pay for the cost of its members’ claims and to run the business. They don’t have shareholders to pay, so they can dedicate themselves to taking care of their members’ health.

Not-for-profit funds use any surplus earnings to give their members a better health care experience, which can come in the form of lower premiums or new benefits.

What is community rating?

Unlike other forms of insurance, health insurance in Australia is community-rated, not risk-rated. Health funds can’t stop someone from joining or change the price of health insurance based on risk factors like age, gender, lifestyle or physical condition.

Community rating means regardless of how likely you are to claim, everyone is entitled to pay the same base price for the same health insurance policies. It also means health funds must provide health insurance to anybody who wants it.

Does HBF use insurance comparison/broker websites to sell health cover?

As a member based, not for profit organisation, we are committed to providing quality, affordable cover to our members. From 2017 we discontinued our commercial affiliate arrangements with insurance comparison websites. This means that we do not pay commissions to insurance comparison websites to sell our health cover.

We prefer to do this through direct conversations, helping you choose the right cover for your life stage and individual needs. Not paying a third party also means that we can focus on giving as much back to our members as possible.

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) financial relief

The World Health Organisation has announced that COVID-19 (Coronavirus) is a pandemic. The situation is rapidly evolving across the globe and within Australia. For the most up to date information we strongly advise you check the Department of Health website or the World Health Organisation website.

Learn more about COVID-19 and health insurance.

Get in touch with HBF

We'll help you find our best cover that suits your needs.