Health insurance is personal insurance coverage that protects your savings from the many healthcare costs not covered by government plans.  There are 4 different types of health insurance products that provide the protection you need at each stage in life.
- Personal health insurance
- Critical illness insurance
- Long term care insurance
- Disability insurance

How does it work?
With health insurance you can access treatment in a private hospital, and your insurer will pay (they can either reimburse you or pay the health provider directly). This means that you won't need to join a public hospital waiting list, and it also usually means that you have a wider range of treatment options, hospitals, and medical specialists available to you.

What is covered?
A good health plan will cover 100% of your major medical expenses, minus any "excess" (the part of the hospital bill that you pay). This includes things like surgery, hospital charges, etc.

It's also common for plans to cover specialist and test costs both before and after your treatment in hospital. In addition, plans will often pay for a range of "major diagnostic" costs (like MRI scans, CT scans, angiograms, etc), even if you don't need treatment in hospital.
What extra cover is available?
Usually you can choose an extra "Specialists and Tests" add-on. This means that specialist and test costs are covered, even if you don't need to go to hospital (for example a referral by your GP to have a test done or have a consultation with a specialist). This can be a good add-on to have because multiple specialist visits or tests can be quite expensive. Some plans also offer add-on cover for day-to-day medical costs, like GP visits and Dental charges.