Our health is arguably the most important thing we should be looking after in life. Knowing that if you get sick, you can be seen and cared for without too much of a delay helps us to live life confidently.

Unfortunately, our crumbling health system is leaving little choice for New Zealanders.

If you’ve been tossing up whether to get Private Medical cover for yourself and your family, don’t delay it any longer, the time is now. 

There have been many government-led promises that things are due to improve, but sadly, the figures tell a different story. 

As of September 2022, there were more than 200,000 New Zealanders on a health waiting list. Of that, over 140,000 are waiting just to see a specialist. 

The system is incredibly underfunded. On top of this, we are short of thousands of healthcare workers. 

The long and short of it is, taking your health into your own hands is unfortunately becoming a matter of life or death in some instances. Early detection and prevention are the best ways to stay healthy. If you are relying on a public system with an unknown amount of time for a diagnosis, treatments, or surgery, this can have devastating impacts on someone’s ability to recover. Read a recent article here about wait times to see cancer specialists. 

Private medical cover is used to complement our public system – you must go public for urgent illnesses or injuries, and for anything not relating to urgent care or ACC (accident) related, that’s where your private cover would kick in. 

This allows you in many cases to bypass public waiting lists, have quicker and broader access to a range of specialists and treatments, and for surgeries to be performed in private facilities. 

There are a range of different options when it comes to medical cover – e.g., you can choose to cover everything, just the big events such as surgeries and hospitalisation, or just cover for cancer – it’s up to you, and ultimately comes down to what you want cover for, and your budget. 

There are also additional ways to manage cost, by adding an excess (similar to how you add an excess onto your car insurance).

If you're interested in exploring private medical cover or would like to know more – please get in touch.