General FAQs

Different health funds provide a variety of policies for people at different stages of their life. When comparing health insurance policies, you should take into account the services that are included and excluded, the associated waiting periods, benefit limits and the excess options. Like any other financial product that you purchase, we recommend you read all the information available before deciding to proceed.

For life, income protection, funeral and pet insurance, your premiums don’t go up as a result of making a claim for products available directly through Choosi. Check the Product Disclosure Statement or Policy Document of the policy you’re interested in for more information about premium pricing.

For life and income protection insurance, you’ll need to declare this when applying, and you’ll then need to undergo the underwriting process which will assess whether or not you can be insured.
 

You can cancel your policy at any time. Each policy has a cooling off period (typically 30 days if you bought through Choosi) and if you cancel your policy within the cooling off period, you’ll be refunded the premiums you’ve paid in full unless a claim has been made. If you cancel cover after the cooling off period, generally there’s no refund of premiums.
 

For life and income protection insurance, you’ll need to declare this when applying, and you’ll then need to undergo the underwriting process which will assess whether or not you can be insured.
 

For policies available through Choosi, the insurer can only take payments from a personal bank account or credit card.
 

For life, income protection, funeral and pet insurance, once you have your new cover in place, all you need to do is to contact your old insurer to cancel the policy you had with them and they’ll go through their individual process with you. There are a few things you need to consider before you go ahead:

• Some insurers will charge you a fee for cancelling, but even with a cancellation fee, you may still be able to save when you make the switch.
• Check that the commencement (start) date of the new policy and the cancellation date of your old policy are aligned so you don’t get caught during a period where you’re not covered by either policy.
• Some policies need a period of notice before the policy can be cancelled. Read the fine print on your current insurer's Product Disclosure Statement or Policy Booklet to find out more.
• If you’ve paid an annual premium, the insurer may only refund an amount that’s proportionate to the premium that you paid for any unused term. Certain fees or duties may be deducted from the premium to be repaid. You should refer to the Product Disclosure Statement or Policy Booklet for details.
• There are risks involved with switching which you should consider. For example, your new cover may not be identical in every respect, and if your health has deteriorated since you started your old policy, this may affect how you’re underwritten (assessed) for cover on your new policy. For pet insurance policies, your pet may be subject to exclusions like pre-existing conditions in the new policy, particularly if you’ve made a claim for these conditions under the existing policy. This means the condition may not be covered on the new policy.

When a policy is bought through us, we’re paid a commission from the insurer. We don’t charge any fees or add on any extra costs for the service that we provide to our customers, so you pay the same price buying through Choosi as you would if you went direct to the insurer. See our Financial Services Guide for more details.

For life, funeral, and income protection claims, the step will usually be as follows:
 

1. You’ll need to call the dedicated claims number found in your Product Disclosure Statement (usually under the ‘Claims’ or ‘Making a claim’ section), and the claims department will either email or post a claim form for you to fill out.

2. You either post or email the form back using the contact details provided on the form, and once the insurer has received all the necessary documentation, your claim will then be assessed. If approved, a payment for your benefit will be made promptly to your nominated bank account (or a bank cheque if you don’t have an Australian bank account).

   Below are some tips to ensure that your claim is assessed as quickly as possible:

   • You should make sure that you complete the claim form in full and that you include all the supporting documents that are requested when you send your claim to the insurer.
   • If you don’t understand some of the questions asked on the form, or there’s something you’re not sure about, you can ring the claims department.
   • Depending on the type of claim you make, there’s sometimes a medical form that must be completed by the treating medical professional in relation to the condition for which you’re claiming, so ensure that you give this form to them as soon as possible.
   • In some cases, the insurer may also need to get some additional information from you, and once they have this information, they’ll consider it along with the rest of your claim as quickly as possible.

The length of time to assess and provide an outcome will depend on the nature and complexity of your claim. Sometimes the insurer may require additional reports from your medical practitioners or from government organisations like Medicare, and this means that the claim is subject to their turnaround times to acquire this information. If this occurs, your dedicated claims agent will inform you and keep you up to date with the progress of your claim.

Funeral claims are generally pretty straight forward and assuming the insurer is satisfied with all the information provided, then these can take only a few days to be paid out.

For pet insurance claims, if you bought your policy through Choosi, you can make a claim online through your policy’s online claims portal (generally there’s a link provided on their website) or you can download a claim form from the portal and fill that out. Pet insurance claims work by reimbursement, meaning that you’ll need to pay upfront for the cost of your pet’s treatment, and any eligible portion of that cost will be reimbursed when you make a claim through your policy. Some vets also offer GapOnly which allows you or your vet to make a claim upfront for the cost of any eligible vet treatment costs, and you only pay the gap (there’s no need to wait for a reimbursement from your policy).

Usually, it takes no longer than 30 seconds to generate a quote once Choosi gathers some basic information about you and what you need.

Generally, for life insurance and funeral insurance benefits, you won’t be required to pay tax. For income protection insurance, benefits paid are considered as income and may be assessable as income for tax purposes. As your individual circumstances may differ, you should consult a professional tax adviser for advice regarding your situation.

This will all depend on the type of product you’re applying for. Some funeral and life insurance policies will only expire when you die, but for some optional covers within those main policies, they may expire after you reach a certain age. For income protection policies, generally these expire after you reach 65 years of age. You should check the Product Disclosure Statement for the policy you’re interested in for the full details.

Generally, there’s no expiry on your pet insurance policy so you can keep your cover for the life of your pet, as long as you renew your policy each year and don’t have a gap in cover. You should check the Policy Booklet for the policy you’re interested in for the full details.

A Choosi reference ID is a set of numbers that are issued each time that you get a quote. If you decide to call the Choosi call centre, you can quote your Choosi reference ID so that we can access your quote details easily.

Each insurance policy you can buy through Choosi has a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) or Policy Booklet (for pet insurance policies). This is a document issued by the insurer to provide you with important information on the product to help you compare and make a decision on whether it suits you. It generally includes information like product features, benefits, limits, exclusions, and the policy’s terms and conditions, as well as general information like how to make a claim or resolve a dispute.

Your premium will be debited on the date of your choice. The frequency will depend on the payment option you choose that’s available with the insurer. For most policies available through Choosi, payments can be made fortnightly, monthly, or annually.
 

For most policies available through Choosi, premiums can be debited from a Visa or MasterCard, or from a bank account.

Choosi has been helping Australians get their insurance sorted since August 2011! Originally offering a comparison service for life, income protection and funeral insurance, we now also offer a direct comparison service for pet insurance, and through our trusted partners, we can also help you compare car, home & contents, landlord and business insurance.
 

Generally, for life, income protection and funeral insurance, an ‘Australian resident’ means a person who resides in Australia and either holds an Australian or New Zealand citizenship; holds an Australian permanent residency visa; or has been in Australia continuously for six months or more on a temporary work visa and resides in Australia. You should check the Product Disclosure Statement of the policy you’re interested in for the insurer’s specific definition, as it may vary slightly from insurer to insurer.

Choosi works with a wide range of insurers. Our current list of insurers is available on our homepage.

This will all depend on the policy that you choose. The Product Disclosure Statement or pet insurance Policy Booklet will give you details of the insurer for all types of cover.