4 ways to get more from your HBF health cover

By HBF

4 minutes

06 February 2018

Last updated:

People buy health insurance for lots of different reasons. For most, it’s for the same reason they insure their car or home. It’s to protect something important—your health—against the unexpected. To give you peace of mind that it will be there when you or your family need it most.

Like your car or home insurance, your health insurance doesn’t get much attention until you really need it—and that’s a good thing. But while you’re fit and healthy, your health insurance doesn’t have to sit around collecting dust.

There’s heaps of easy things you can do to make sure you’re getting mileage out of your HBF health cover. Make the most of your Extras Insurance, or use those HBF Member Perks you’ve forgotten about…

Here’s our top four tips to get you started:

1. Push it to the (annual) limit

So long as you have an appropriate level of cover, you can take advantage of a fully covered scale and clean at the dentist, and pick up a pair of prescription glasses every calendar year. Annual Limits on your Extras Insurance reset on 1 January, so if you have cover that includes these benefits, you can rest easy knowing your annual dental check-up or prescription glasses upgrade is always less than 12 months away.

2. Save on your healthcare bills with Member Plus Providers

If you need to go to hospital, or visit a dentist or optometrist, make sure you see a Member Plus Provider. These are specialists HBF has agreements with to make sure you have little or no gap to pay when you visit them.

But how do you tell the difference between a regular specialist and a Member Plus Provider? Just use our Find a Provider tool.

3. Cheap movie tickets

As an HBF member, you can purchase discounted vouchers to see the latest blockbuster in style at heaps of cinemas across Australia. You can sip champagne, enjoy a fancy meal delivered by your very own waiter and save some money at the same time. E-vouchers can be purchased online through myHBF.

4. Get a new fitness wardrobe

While it might seem like a convenient excuse to buy new clothes, research shows having the right wardrobe can make you more likely to work-out. Researchers call it 'enclothed cognition', which describes the mental change you go through when you put on certain clothes1.

What’s it all mean? Basically, buying and wearing new fitness gear tricks your brain into being ready for a work-out. And with 15% off fitness gear from Running Warehouse when you show your HBF member card, there’s officially no excuse to not treat yourself.

Here’s a bonus tip: make sure your health insurance actually covers the things you need. It sounds obvious, but for most people, health insurance is a bit of a set-and-forget. By taking a moment every year to review your policy, you could save yourself in the long run.

 
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Sources:
1 Science Direct - Enclothed cognition (2012)