OSHC for couples and dependants in Australia: compare family cover before you buy
How OSHC family policies are structured for partners and children under the current OSHC Deed, what is identical across every insurer, and where the real differences sit.
If your Student visa application lists a partner or children, your OSHC policy has to cover them too — and the way you do that is decided by the policy structure, not by your insurer’s goodwill. Plenty of students assume the only choice is “single or family”, get a quote built for one person, and discover at enrolment that Home Affairs needs the whole family on one policy.
This guide walks through how family OSHC is actually defined under the current OSHC Deed, what is identical no matter which insurer you choose, and the three places where policies genuinely differ. It is written from the primary legal instrument — the OSHC Deed that commenced on 1 July 2025 — not from insurers’ marketing pages.
Every approved OSHC insurer must offer the same statutory minimum. That is why comparing “cover levels” on paper mostly produces the same result. The real decisions are about who is on the policy, when cover starts, and what happens when your family situation changes.
Who counts as a dependant on OSHC
The Deed is precise about this, and precision matters here because it determines who must be included on your policy.
- A Dependant is defined as a Partner plus any Dependant Children.
- A Partner is a spouse or de facto partner of the Overseas Student, where that spouse or de facto partner is an eligible family member for the purposes of a Student visa.
- A Dependant Child is a child, adopted child or step-child of the Overseas Student or their Partner, where that child is an eligible family member for the purposes of a Student visa.
Source: OSHC Deed commencing 1 July 2025, definitions of “Dependant”, “Partner” and “Dependant Child”.
The operative words are “eligible family member for the purposes of a Student visa”. That test comes from Australian immigration law, not from your insurer. If a family member does not qualify as an eligible family member for your visa, they are not a Dependant under the Deed, and putting them on the policy is a different question entirely. Check the Department of Home Affairs’ position on family members for a Student visa before you assume who has to be included.
The four categories a family policy can have
The Deed defines exactly four Insured Group categories. These are the only structures available to you:
| Category | Who is covered |
|---|---|
| (a) | The Overseas Student only |
| (b) | The Overseas Student and their Partner |
| (c) | The Overseas Student and their Dependant Children |
| (d) | The Overseas Student, a Partner and their Dependant Children |
Source: OSHC Deed commencing 1 July 2025, definition of “Insured Group”.
Note what category (c) is: student plus dependant children, without a partner. If you have a child and a partner, you are in category (d), not a combination of (b) and (c). This trips people up because a lot of retail insurance terminology treats “family” as one flexible word. Under the Deed it is a fixed, four-option structure.
What is identical across every insurer
Because every approved insurer signs the same Deed, the statutory minimum is the same floor everywhere. From Schedule 1 of the Deed:
| Service | Statutory minimum rate |
|---|---|
| Public hospital services | 100% of charges raised by the public hospital |
| Out-of-hospital medical services | 85% of the Medicare Benefits Schedule fee |
| In-hospital medical services | 100% of the Medicare Benefits Schedule fee |
| Ambulance (when medically necessary) | 100% of the charge |
| PBS prescriptions | Amount above the PBS co-payment, capped at $50 per item |
Source: OSHC Deed commencing 1 July 2025, Schedule 1 “Services and Rates for Base Coverage”.
For pharmaceutical benefits, the Deed sets minimum totals that differ by insured group: $500 per calendar year for the Overseas Student alone, and $1,000 per calendar year for each of the other Insured Group categories. The Private Health Insurance Ombudsman states the same rule on its OSHC information page.
Read those rows carefully — they are the whole reason a “family” policy is not simply a single policy repeated per person. The pharmaceutical benefit is expressed per insured group, and the $1,000 minimum applies to each of categories (b), (c) and (d).
What this means for you: if an insurer’s quote for a family policy meets the same statutory minimums as everyone else’s, then on cover content alone the policies are equivalent. Comparing further down the cover schedule tells you about service design, not about compliance.
Where policies genuinely differ
If the statutory floor is identical, the real differences live in three places. These are what actually deserve your comparison time.
1. Private hospital agreements
Schedule 1 of the Deed splits private hospital treatment into two cases. If the insurer has a contract with the private hospital, benefits are as specified in that contract. If there is no contract, the benefit falls to the applicable minimum under the Benefit Requirement Rules.
In practice this means the difference between a member being treated as a fully covered private patient and being exposed to a shortfall is largely a question of whether your fund has an agreement with the hospital you would actually use. A policy that is perfectly Deed-compliant can still leave you with an out-of-pocket amount at an uncontracted private hospital. See our guide to how ‘gap-free’ cover actually works for the wider picture.
2. Waiting periods on a new family member
A dependant added mid-policy is not always covered from the day you add them. Schedule 4 of the Deed sets the caps:
- Specified out-of-hospital MBS services and Emergency Treatment: nil waiting period.
- Hospital treatment or hospital-substitute treatment, other than Emergency Treatment: maximum of 2 months.
- Hospital treatment for a Pre-existing Condition: maximum of 12 months.
- Pregnancy-related services: up to 12 months for products of less than 2 years duration, and nil for products of 2 years or more, measured from the insurer’s premium-change implementation date after 1 July 2025.
Source: OSHC Deed commencing 1 July 2025, Schedule 4 “Waiting Periods”.
The pregnancy rule is the one most often stated incorrectly. It is not a flat 12 months for every OSHC policy — the duration of the product determines the cap. If you are pregnant or planning a pregnancy, ask each insurer directly which product duration they would put you on and when their premium-change implementation date falls.
3. Credit for waiting periods you already served
The Deed is explicit that a waiting period served under a previous OSHC Product is offset against, or credited towards, the waiting period of a new OSHC Product — provided there is continuous cover. For a family policy this matters twice: once for you, and once for any dependant joining a policy that was already running.
4. What happens when your family changes
Your family composition is usually fixed by what is declared on your visa. But it can change — a birth, a relationship ending, a child ageing out of the visa definition, or a visa extension.
Two things to confirm in writing before you buy:
- What notice does the insurer need, and how quickly? An insurer needs to update who is on the policy when your circumstances change.
- What happens to the premium? Adding or removing a member mid-term generally means a new premium calculation, and the Deed’s refund schedule in Schedule 5 deals with specific situations such as not arriving in Australia, refused entry, or an extended stay. If your premium was calculated on a visa length that turned out to be wrong, that is the provision to point at.
Source: OSHC Deed commencing 1 July 2025, Schedule 5 “Premium Refunds”.
Your cover has to cover the whole stay
None of the above matters if the policy period is wrong. Visa condition 8501 requires the holder to maintain adequate arrangements for health insurance for the duration of their stay in Australia, and the Department of Home Affairs asks some visa applicants to provide a current policy document as evidence.
Home Affairs also notes that OSHC products may carry information notices stating whether the selected level satisfies condition 8501, and that the level of cover provided by OSHC products can vary between providers.
Source: Department of Home Affairs — Adequate health insurance for visa holders.
For a family, the practical consequence is that every member’s cover must run for the same compliant period. A cover end date that works for you does not rescue a dependant whose cover expires earlier.
How to compare, then buy
Because the statutory minimum is common ground, a useful comparison is short and structural. Work through it in this order:
- Fix the period. Your exact cover start and end dates, based on your visa, before you look at any price.
- Pick the category. (a), (b), (c) or (d) — determined by who is an eligible family member for your Student visa.
- Check the three real differences: private hospital agreements, waiting periods for any member added mid-term, and the process for changing members later.
- Only then compare price. Compare live quotes on identical dates and an identical category.
We build a side-by-side view of the current OSHC insurers on our comparison page, and you can price your own family policy with live quotes through our quote page. Prices are quoted by the insurers for your specific dates and category — we do not publish indicative premium ranges, because insurer pricing changes and a stale range would mislead you.
The insurers currently selling OSHC that you can price and buy through our checkout are Allianz Care Australia, Bupa Australia, Medibank and ahm. nib also sells OSHC, and we compare it, but we do not offer it for purchase.
A note on who currently sells OSHC
You will still see insurer-count lists online that include a company which no longer sells OSHC. That number is out of date. CBHS International Health states on its own site that it no longer offers Overseas Student Health Cover, with existing member cover continuing as normal. Several third-party lists, including the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman’s OSHC page, still carry the older list. Always confirm a provider has a current OSHC product page before you rely on it.
Key takeaways
- The statutory minimum is identical at every approved insurer. Cover content is not where family policies differ.
- Family structure is a fixed four-option list defined by the Deed, tied to who is an eligible family member for your Student visa.
- Prescription medicine minimums are per insured group — $500 a year for the student alone, $1,000 a year for each other category.
- The pregnancy waiting period depends on product duration, and is not automatically 12 months.
- Private hospital agreements, waiting periods for members added later, and how easy it is to change members are the three things genuinely worth comparing.
- Your period has to satisfy condition 8501 for the whole stay, for every person on the policy.
Sources
All product facts in this article come from primary sources, principally:
- OSHC Deed commencing 1 July 2025 (PDF) — Schedules 1, 4 and 5, and the definitions of Insured Group, Dependant, Partner and Dependant Child.
- Department of Health and Aged Care — OSHC resources and Deed collection
- Department of Home Affairs — Adequate health insurance for visa holders
- Department of Home Affairs — Student visa (subclass 500)
- Private Health Insurance Ombudsman — Overseas Student Health Cover
- Private Health Insurance Ombudsman — Waiting periods
- Medicare Benefits Schedule Online and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
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.