This week peak private hospital organisations backed the AMA’s long-standing call for insurers to return a mandated minimum of 90 per cent of private health insurance premiums to consumers in the form of benefits.
The Australian Private Hospitals Association (APHA) and Catholic Health Australia (CHA) this week released a joint position statement calling on the government to guarantee and legislate a minimum insurer benefit-payout ratio of 90 per cent.
The AMA first made the call for a minimum insurer benefit-payout ratio in 2020.
Our latest private health insurance report card showed that every year since 2008 the growth in private health insurance premiums has outstripped inflation, health sector inflation, average weekly earnings and the indexation of the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS).
In 2024–25, insurers returned 84.2 per cent of premiums to consumers as benefits —well below the 2019 level of 88 per cent.
The report card also showed that over the six years to June 2025, insurers increased benefits paid for in-hospital treatment by only 18.1 per cent — a modest rise compared with sector profits, which grew by nearly 50 per cent over the same period.
