This report analyses key competition and consumer developments and trends in the private health insurance industry between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019, including ACCC enforcement and other actions relating to the health sector.

Key industry developments and trends:

• In 2018-19, consumers paid over $24.5 billion in private health insurance premiums, an increase of over $661 million or 2.8 per cent from 2017-18.
• The amount of hospital benefits paid to consumers by health insurers was around $15.4 billion and the amount of extras treatment benefits paid was around $5.3 billion.
• The number of hospital policies with an excess or co-payment continued to increase slightly from 84 per cent to 85 per cent.
• 86.8 per cent of in-hospital treatments are delivered without requiring any gap payments from patients, a slight reduction from the 2017-18 figure of 87.8 per cent.
• Complaints to the PHIO have decreased by over 11 per cent since June 2018. Over the same period, contacts to the ACCC relating to private health insurance decreased by 17 per cent, the same percentage decrease as from 2016-17 to 2017-18.