Are we surprised?

On reflection I better not comment. I had surgery during the shutdown. My surgery was deemed urgent so I went under the knife. I can't complain about our health funds service. Apart from 30 years of un used fees. Payback time!

We haven't had any increase in health insurance costs in 2020. Only a couple of providers deferred both the increases that were approved. Some deferred only one increase. So if you're in the position to ship around, that's as good as reason as any. The Fed govt also deferred the scheduled decrease in rebate until 2021. The big question was why an increase was approved when all the standard arguments for increases were known to be incorrect ?

Ok. Just checked. April 2020 increases were approved and announced pre-covid in 2019. A lot of funds that deferred the April increase, increased in Oct instead. Quite a lot are freezing and deferring increases to people affected by Covid-19 (usually the employable age group) but for self funded people it's stiff bikkies it would seem. Submissions for 2021 premium increases closed recently.

I think its a safe bet that those saving will be taken up once elective surgery gets back up the capacity.
As I lay here in hospital after getting my new hip yesterday ..