How do I switch to Frank?
Switching your health insurance doesn’t have to be difficult. When you join Frank Health Insurance, we do the transfer for you. Simply give us the details of your old provider when you join, and we’ll put in the request for you. Easy.
Steps to switching your health insurance to Frank
- Join Frank Health Insurance
- During sign up, complete the details of your previous fund
- Frank will contact your old fund on your behalf and request cancellation
- Your old fund will send us a transfer certificate with details of your level of cover, waiting periods and remaining benefits for year
- If you had paid any advance premiums to your old insurer, they’ll refund you when the transfer takes place.
By giving Frank the details of your old fund when you sign up, you don’t have to deal with your old fund and you will avoid reserving any waiting periods meaning you can claim straight away on any eligible services.
How does the transfer work?
When you ask us to transfer your health insurance during online sign up, you’re agreeing for us to contact your old fund. We request the cancellation of your previous health insurance cover and ask them to send us a transfer certificate. By law they must send this to us within 14 days
Will my waiting periods reset?
You can avoid serving new waiting periods when you transfer your health insurance from another health insurer, just as long as you:
- Have already served all of the waiting periods with your previous health insurer, and
- Have switched to an equivalent or lower level of cover within the 30 days of your membership ceasing with your previous health insurer.
If your new cover with us includes higher benefits or services that weren’t covered by your previous policy, you’ll have to serve the Frank waiting periods before you can claim those specific benefits at the new (higher) level. In the meantime, we will cover you for the same services you were previously covered for (as long as they're part of your new cover).
If you transfer to Frank before serving the waiting periods with your previous health insurer, you’ll need to serve the balance of the waiting periods before being able to claim.
When you transfer to Frank your extras benefit entitlements will be adjusted by benefits already paid by your previous health insurer.
How do I review or compare products?
All health funds issue a Private Health Information Statement (PHIS) for each policy available. This document provides an overview of what’s covered on a policy. You can compare these PHIS documents between insurers to make sure you know what you’re comparing here.
What to consider when switching health insurance
Hospital benefits
- Your hospital requirements may change throughout your life, check if you need cover for things like pregnancy or joint replacements
- If you have not completed your waiting periods at your previous fund, the remainder of the waiting period will still apply before you can claim a benefit
- Compare hospital excess, the amount of excess you pay may affect your premium.
Extras benefits
Consider what you want to be covered for:
- Services offered/do the policies meet your needs?
- Have your needs changed since you last looked at health insurance?
- Level of benefits paid, per service and annual
- Are the benefits per person or family?
- At what time of year do limits reset? Frank works on a calendar year, some health insurers work on the tax year
