Our experts have reviewed health insurance extras policies from more than 40 insurers to find the best policies for people on a budget.
Budget extras are worth considering if you’re only after a couple of dentist visits a year and some physio. If you also need cover for glasses, you might be better off looking at our health insurance comparison.
The policies we’ve selected below offer the best level of cover for general dental and physio for less than $15 a month, including the full 24% government rebate.
Extras health insurance covers health services outside of going to hospital. It may help to pay for things like dental, physio, chiro, and optical. But how much the insurers pay is capped, which means the insurer pays a bit, and you pay a bit.
This is on top of you paying the insurer a lot in premiums over time.
Do you need extras health insurance?
Maybe not. Insurers and for-profit comparison sites will try to sell you both hospital and extras insurance in a bundle, but it can often work out cheaper to buy them from different insurers, or skip the extras cover altogether.
If you only want health insurance to go to a private hospital, then you don’t need extras insurance. You only need hospital insurance for that. And if you only need health insurance to save money on tax, then you want a basic hospital insurance policy. Extras health insurance won’t save you tax dollars.
Don’t buy extras insurance if you aren’t prepared to put the effort in to claim
Extras insurance is to help manage out-of-hospital healthcare costs. If you claim back more than you spend on the policy, then you’ve got your money’s worth.
Don’t buy extras insurance if you aren’t prepared to put the effort in to claim. If you keep paying your premium and don’t claim it back, it’s the same as that gym membership you never use: a waste of money.
Do you need extras health insurance for tax? No. What the health insurers and for-profit comparison sites won’t tell you, is that you only need hospital insurance to save money on tax, not extras insurance. But the insurers usually try to bundle extras with hospital to suck more money from your wallet.
What do budget extras policies cover?
The basic extras policies we’ve selected cover physiotherapy, and general and preventative dental treatments.
General dental includes all the basic, routine dental treatment you know and love, like X-rays, fillings and simple extractions.
Preventative dental refers to regular check-ups including periodic oral exams, scale and clean and fluoride treatment.
What’s not covered are the big ticket dental items like:
major dental, which includes bigger jobs like surgical tooth extractions and crowns.
endodontic (root canals), which is often bundled with major dental but is its own category, meaning insurers can have a separate limit for it, or exclude it entirely
orthodontic (braces), which almost always has separate limits.
The best budget extras health insurance policies
These policies offer the best cover for general dental and physio for under $15 a month, including the full 24% government rebate for a single person.
We’re not loyal to brands. We’re loyal to you.
Unlike for-profit comparison websites, we don’t get paid by any of the insurers we compare. This means we don’t recommend insurers based on how much they pay us. We only recommend the best insurance policies for you.
Price: For budget extras the premium before rebate for a single person must be under $15 a month with the full 24% rebate for singles under 65 earning $105,000 or less, or $210,000 for a couple.
Complaints: We take into account the rate and seriousness of complaints made to the ombudsman about the health fund. We only selected funds that have a Low or Medium complaints rating in our health insurance comparison.
Cover: For budget extras, we rate cover for general dental and physio based on a) the rebates available for individual items (e.g. a physio session) and the total amount you can claim in a year and b) the range of services available in a policy.
Jodi Bird is the Managing Financial Content Editor at CHOICE. Previously at CHOICE, he worked as Travel project lead and as a Finance specialist.
Jodi has extensive experience in financial services, having worked with major banks such as CBA, Westpac and Credit Suisse. He enjoys breaking down complex consumer decisions into easy to understand steps and holding companies to account for failing their customers. He is regularly called upon for expert commentary by major broadcasters such as the ABC, SBS, and Channels 7, 9, and 10.
Jodi has a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Economics from the University of Wollongong. He is RG146 compliance certified to provide general advice for General Insurance and is a Responsible Manager on CHOICE's Australian Financial Services License. LinkedIn
Jodi Bird is the Managing Financial Content Editor at CHOICE. Previously at CHOICE, he worked as Travel project lead and as a Finance specialist.
Jodi has extensive experience in financial services, having worked with major banks such as CBA, Westpac and Credit Suisse. He enjoys breaking down complex consumer decisions into easy to understand steps and holding companies to account for failing their customers. He is regularly called upon for expert commentary by major broadcasters such as the ABC, SBS, and Channels 7, 9, and 10.
Jodi has a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Economics from the University of Wollongong. He is RG146 compliance certified to provide general advice for General Insurance and is a Responsible Manager on CHOICE's Australian Financial Services License. LinkedIn
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