Even if you don’t have private health insurance, you don't need to worry about copping a bill for tens of thousands of dollars if you get hit by a bus or need your appendix out.
Medicare covers emergency care in a public hospital. But Medicare does not cover ambulance transportation to the hospital.
In some states, the state government covers the cost of ambulance trips. In others, you'll need to pay for coverage – either through an ambulance subscription or a health fund (or be left out of pocket if you need an ambulance). For expert guidance finding a policy that matches your needs, compare your health insurance options.
Do you need ambulance cover?
A trip to hospital in an ambulance can easily cost about $1000, depending on how far away you are from the nearest hospital.
But if it's just ambulance cover you're concerned about, you may find you're already covered by your state government, or that a state ambulance subscription service might offer the best value. Your options depend on where you live:
- Tas and Qld – ambulance trips are covered by the state governments. (Tasmanian residents are currently not covered for emergency ambulance trips if they travel in Qld or SA, while Queensland residents are covered in all states).
- NSW, ACT and Perth metro area (including Fremantle and Armadale) – ambulance cover is only available from health insurance funds.
- NT, SA, Vic and rural WA – ambulance cover is available with your health insurance or by subscribing to your state ambulance service.
If you're a pensioner or concession card-holder, you may be entitled to free ambulance cover – check with your state ambulance service.
What you need to know about ambulance cover with your health insurance
If you have private health insurance, it's possible that ambulance cover is included (in NSW, for example, all hospital policies must include ambulance cover, and some extras policies may too). But it's worth being aware that the insurance that's included in your health policy may only cover you for emergency ambulances. You may not be covered for:
- ambulance officers treating you 'at the scene' if you don't need to get taken to hospital
- non-emergency transfer to hospital (for example, for ongoing treatment)
- more than one trip per person, or two per family per year
- evacuation by air or sea ambulance – sometimes only road ambulance is covered.
Are ambulance subscriptions the best option?
In some states, instead of taking out health insurance, you can take out a membership with your state ambulance service which covers you for ambulance transport. Ambulance subscriptions often don't have the same restrictions as private health insurance policies.
If you have extras insurance and you take out an ambulance service subscription, your insurer may pay out a partial or full refund for the cost of the subscription (depending in your policy). But there's no health insurance rebate on state ambulance subscriptions, as there is on private health insurance.
Ambulance-only insurance cover
If you don't need private health insurance, there is another way to get covered for ambulance.
Several health insurers, including Medibank and Bupa, offer ambulance-only cover. This doesn't cover you for treatment in hospital – only for the transportation there by ambulance.
But it is a lot cheaper than health insurance and the cover conditions for ambulance can also be better. Ambulance-only cover is:
- a good option in ACT, NSW and metropolitan WA where you can not get a subscription with a state ambulance service
- a way for Tasmanian residents travelling to NSW, SA or Qld to get cover for ambulance trips, as they aren't covered by their state ambulance service when travelling in those states
- not needed by Queensland residents, who are covered Australia-wide by their state government
- worth comparing with an ambulance subscription in the NT, SA, Vic and regional WA, if all you want is cover for ambulance trips.
Ambulance-only cover also attracts the health insurance rebate, like regular health insurance policies. This means that depending on your income you could be eligible for a discount of up to 24%. But it does not help you avoid Lifetime Health Cover loadings or the Medicare Levy Surcharge – you need hospital cover for that. Find out more about hospital insurance.
Compared: Ambulance-only insurance vs ambulance subscriptions
We compared the two biggest health funds' ambulance policies with a state ambulance service subscription (in the states where a subscription service is available) and found that it's generally cheaper to buy an ambulance cover policy from a health insurance fund (as long as you shop around for the best price).
In our comparison, Bupa emergency-only ambulance cover was the cheapest option in almost all areas, after the health insurance rebate was applied. And we only looked at the two largest funds – there could be even cheaper options out there. The only exception to this that we found was for family cover in the northern part of rural WA.
However, the cover provided by all ambulance policies differs. For example, Bupa offer two policies – a cheaper one that covers emergency ambulance only, and their Premium policy which covers up to $5000 of non-emergency ambulance too.
Ambulance subscriptions also cover some non-emergency ambulance transport, whereas health funds don't tend to. Use our health insurance comparison to compare all the available ambulance health insurance policies and make sure you get the best value cover that suits your needs
Ambulance services in your state or territory
- ACT
- NSW
- Northern Territory
- Queensland
- South Australia
- Tasmania
- Victoria
- WA, Perth; Country WA ambulance cover.
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Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
