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How much OSHC costs by visa length: comparing 12, 24, 36 and 48-month cover

Why a longer student visa means a longer OSHC premium period, why price per day is the only comparable unit, and how to get a live figure for your exact dates.

Everyone budgeting for a multi-year Australian study has the same first question about Overseas Student Health Cover: is a 48-month policy going to cost roughly four times a 12-month one? The honest answer is that the structure scales with time almost linearly, but the rate is set per insurer and can change — so the only unit that lets you compare plans honestly is the price per day over your exact dates.

This guide explains the cost drivers, why we deliberately do not publish indicative premium ranges, and how to get a figure that actually applies to you.

Why a longer visa means a longer premium period

OSHC is a time-based product. You pay for cover from a start date to an end date, and the premium is calculated over that period. A Student visa (subclass 500) is typically granted for the duration of your course plus any eligible stay, so a three-year undergraduate course generally means multi-year cover. The Department of Home Affairs requires that you hold adequate health insurance for the whole of your stay, and it must satisfy the visa condition on health insurance (condition 8501).

Because the premium accrues across the covered days, cover spanning 48 months covers roughly four times as many days as cover spanning 12 months. The direction of that relationship is not in doubt.

The thing that is genuinely variable is the daily rate, not the number of days. Insurers price the rate differently, and that rate is what you are actually choosing between.

Why “per day” is the only honest unit

Two quotes are only comparable if they cover the same thing. When you compare a 12-month policy priced one way against a 48-month policy priced another, the total premium difference tells you almost nothing about which insurer is cheaper. What tells you something is the cost per covered day.

Once you have a per-day figure, you can compare like for like:

  1. Same cover start date and end date.
  2. Same insured group category (single, partner, children — see our family OSHC guide).
  3. Same type of cover — OSHC, not OVHC.

If a 48-month quote looks cheaper per day than a 12-month quote, that is a genuine signal worth acting on. If it looks more expensive per day, longer cover is costing you a rate premium. Neither conclusion can be drawn from totals alone.

Why we do not publish indicative premium ranges

You will notice this site does not list a price range for any insurer. That is deliberate.

OSHC premiums are not published as a fixed tariff. Each insurer sets its own rates, and those rates can change — often announced before 1 July, and at other times as well. A range we published three months ago could be wrong by the time you read it, and a wrong range is worse than no range because it anchors your budget on a number that does not apply to you.

The insurers set their own live pricing on their own product pages — Allianz Care Australia, ahm, Bupa Australia, Medibank and nib. Your price depends on your dates, your category and the insurer’s current rates, which is exactly the kind of thing a live quote should decide — not a number on a comparison page.

Get your own live figure

To see the real cost for your exact dates, use the site’s own quote flow. You enter your cover dates and category, and you get live figures from the insurers currently selling OSHC — Allianz Care Australia, Bupa Australia, Medibank and ahm, all of which you can buy through our checkout. nib also sells OSHC and we compare it, though we do not offer it for purchase.

The insurers quote you directly for your dates and category, so the figure you see is the figure you pay.

Key takeaways

  • Premium scales with the number of covered days. A longer visa means a longer premium period.
  • Compare per day, not by total. Totals across different cover lengths are not comparable.
  • The daily rate is the real decision. That is what actually differs between insurers.
  • Fix your dates and category first. A comparison is meaningless unless both quotes cover the same period and people.
  • We do not publish indicative ranges because insurer rates change and a stale range would mislead you.

Sources

All facts in this article come from primary sources:

Information is current as at 1 October 2026. This is general information, not personal advice, and it does not consider your personal circumstances. CompareOSHC is not an insurer or underwriter. We may receive a commission from insurers; commissions do not influence our comparisons.

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