I was not aware that Health Insurance rates varied depending on the state you live in until I changed my address from WA to NSW and was immediately slugged about $40 extra per month for the privilege. How can this be justified?
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Hi @cpreller,
According to the Private Health Insurance Ombudsmen, ‘Differences in price are based on the variations in cost and benefit between states, and in some cases state government health arrangements.’ Although it doesn’t help with the confusion or frustration, it’s speaking to various factors like localised prices, service agreements, and possibly health trends.
If you’re changing areas, make sure to check out the agreement hospitals and range of providers in your new area to make sure you’re still getting good access to cover in case you need it.
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Its not only health insurance, it’s all insurance that does this. And in the case of things such as car, CTP, home and contents insurances, it will change from suburb to suburb and even between streets in the same suburb. And I read a couple of days ago even the colour of your car can add a premium!
It’s all based on risk analysis. The insurers have actuaries working out these things for them. For example, with streets, the quieter the street the lower the premium, with cul-de-sacs being the lowest in an urban setting. If you think about it, there is far less through traffic, and strangers are more likely noticed, so lower crime rates, lower traffic accidents, etc.
For health insurance, you can be sure it is based on actuarial work from available health data.
Additionally, the more information that is gathered by the Government and businesses, and the more information we put out there (for example using social media), the more data mining that will occur, and the more the insurers, and others can refine their data.
So there are reasons, from the insurers’ point of view at least, for the varying premium rates.
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Spoken like an insurance company employee 
Never was, and never will be anything to do with the insurance or related industry.
This information was garnered from talking to actuaries, and from my research in relation to my insurance policies. Oh, and I was also a health care consumer representative too.
But thanks for the compliment (I’ll take it as one). 
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