I’m sorry if this turns into a wall of text.
My wife and I had our first child at the start of September. My wife was told by NIB that she could have baby, then call them within 60 days to have baby added to her insurance policy, and it would cover her from birth and baby would have no waiting periods.
We had baby, I’m an Australian Citizen, my wife is on a spousal visa (461) (I was NZ citizen, got my AU citizenship earlier in the year). So our baby is an AU citizen. My wife also now has blue Medicare (but is still a 461) because she’s applied for a spousal visa of an Australian citizen.
We called NIB to have baby added to her policy, but NIB then said baby couldn’t be added to her policy because baby is a resident and can’t be on visitor cover.
So trying to find a way to make it work and get what we were promised (baby to have insurance, it to apply from baby’s date of birth, and baby not to have any waiting periods)
On the most recent call to NIB we started to arrange that my wife get a resident insurance policy (which she can have because she has Medicare). The insurance company is happy to do that, but won’t honor their terms as on their website: https://www.nib.com.au/help/health/update-dependants
Quote:
> Adding a newborn
>
> If you already have family cover, contact us to add your baby to your policy. Make sure to add your baby within 24 months of their birth to ensure they receive the same cover entitlements as the longest-serving parent.
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> If you have a singles or couples policy, you'll need to upgrade to family or single parent cover within two months of your baby's birth to avoid waiting periods. If you’re currently serving a waiting period, your child will serve the same waiting period, ending on the same date as yours.
They are saying to us that my wife can get residents cover, but baby can’t have it backdated, and they won’t waive or apply continuity of cover from mum because mum was on a visitor policy, not a residents policy, so they won’t honor it.
We suggested signing mum up to a “singles” resident policy first, then because mum would get continuity of cover and not have waiting periods, we could then go from that resident policy to a family residents policy, add baby, and according to their website baby should be fully covered, but they again refuse to honor that and say because when baby was born mum was on a visitor policy they won’t honor the no waiting periods for baby.
So now we’re thinking we sign mum up for a singles resident plan, then go to another insurance company and sign up for a single resident plan, the “continuity” certificate or whatever should mean that under the new insurance company they won’t have any of the idea/bullshit about mum having been on a visitor cover policy etc. hopefully they can just add baby, bypass the waiting period etc. we know we’re not going to have the backdate to birth like we wanted.
So now the question is:
how much of what NIB is doing is legitimate? Like can they refuse to give baby continuity of cover? Can they refuse to backdate? Will the next insurance company get a record that mum was on visitor cover and will they refuse to give baby continuity of cover?
I really feel like I need to get a lawyer, like just on their website they lay out the plan so clearly with no caveats, that’s either a breach of ACL for false advertising or it’s just NIB refusing to honor their contracts