2025 Health Insurance Awards

Canstar releases its
2025 Health Insurance Star Ratings and Awards.

Released: 11 September, 2025

About this year’s awards

To determine the winners, our Research team assessed hospital only, extras only, and hospital & extras package insurance policies using our sophisticated awards methodology unique to Canstar. Our Awards recognise insurers that consistently deliver outstanding value, helping Australians narrow their search and find the right policy for them.

Canstar recognises that consumers have different needs when it comes to choosing their health insurance policy, which is why our Awards methodology has been designed to reflect a range of health insurance needs based on a consumer’s life stage, family structure and level of coverage.

Each consumer profile is first broken down by their life stage, then family structure. The different life stages are as follows:

• Young consumer profile: less than 36 years of age
• Established consumer profile: 36 to 59 years of age
• Obstetrics consumer profile: any age
• Matures consumer profile: 60 years of age and above

The national, state and territory Outstanding Value Awards are based on a combination of these profile total scores, and recognise the insurance providers with the best cumulative performance across all consumer profiles and locations considered.

About the Award winners

(Winners are listed alphabetically)

Bupa
Outstanding Value Award – Health Insurance: Australia
Outstanding Value Award – Extras Insurance: NSW
Outstanding Value Award – Extras Insurance: VIC
Outstanding Value Award – Extras Insurance: QLD
Outstanding Value Award – Extras Insurance: SA
Outstanding Value Award – Extras Insurance: TAS

Bupa has retained the National Award, with consistently strong performance across hospital, extras and package policies. Bupa performs particularly well in Extras, maintaining five state awards for Extras, as it offers a range of policies that perform strongly across the three levels of cover assessed. Bupa’s Members First Extras Network has thousands of registered healthcare providers across Australia, and provides members with high benefits and limits.

GMHBA
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital Insurance: Australia
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital & Extras Insurance: NSW
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital & Extras Insurance: QLD
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital & Extras Insurance: SA
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital & Extras Insurance: WA
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital & Extras Insurance: VIC

GMHBA is a new national award recipient, providing outstanding value across hospital, extras and package cover. This year its performance strengthened in extras and package cover, picking up five state awards in the packages category. Its SmartCare Extras policies offer competitive premiums and the flexibility of an overall policy limit for consumers to use on included cover. Consumers also have the option to pay a lower premium by opting for sub-limits on the inclusions, which performed well in our assessment. Additionally, when combined as a package its SmartCare Extras suite adds optical cover, further improving its performance in packages. For those seeking broader coverage, GMHBA’s mid-extras policies are available and maintained premiums with no year-on-year increase.

HBF
Outstanding Value Award – Extras Insurance: WA
Outstanding Value Award – Extras Insurance: NT

HBF continued to perform strongly in the extras category, maintaining the state awards in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. HBF’s suite of extras policies perform strongly across the profiles considered, with Flex 50 and Flex 60 standing out in Tier 1 profiles, and Complete 60 and Top 70 performing strongly for Australians seeking broader coverage. These policies offer a percentage back on extras items up to a combined limit, meaning the percentage benefit customers receive increases as costs increase.

HCF
Outstanding Value Award – Health Insurance: Australia
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital & Extras Insurance: TAS

HCF continues to provide outstanding value across hospital, extras and package cover, maintaining the national award and Tasmania package state award. Its Bronze Plus and Standard Silver Plus policies continue to perform well in Young and Established Hospital profiles respectively, offering policyholders broad coverage for a competitive monthly premium. On extras, HCF continues to provide a competitive range of policy options, ensuring consumers can find coverage that suits them and their individual needs.

Medibank
Outstanding Value Award – Health Insurance: Australia
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital Insurance: NSW
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital Insurance: QLD
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital Insurance: NT
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital Insurance: SA
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital Insurance: WA
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital Insurance: VIC
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital & Extras Insurance: NT

Medibank is once again a recipient of the National Award, continuing to offer competitive policy options across all levels to help members find coverage that suits their needs. This year their performance strengthened in Hospital, seeing them become a new award winner in four states in the hospital category, bringing their total number of state awards in 2025 to seven. Strengthening is observed in the Young profiles, and is driven by competitive premiums and cover on their Bronze hospital policy suite. Additionally, their Silver Plus Secure policies contributed to strong performance in the Mature profiles.

St Lukes
Outstanding Value Award – Hospital Insurance: TAS

St. Lukes continues to offer outstanding value in hospital policies in Tasmania, retaining the state award again this year. Their strong performance spans across Young, Established and Mature profiles, offering competitive options across each level, allowing consumers to find the right balance of cost and coverage for their needs. Additionally, their Gold and Planner Silver Plus policies are among the most competitive options in Tasmania for Singles and Families seeking pregnancy cover. 

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About Canstar

Canstar also has insights and information about financial products and services generally. You can find out about topics such as: interest rates, buy now pay later (BNPL), business products and tax. You may also be interested in discovering more about calculators and resources, such as our rate checker and free credit score tool, to help you with your financial decision-making.

About: Josh Sale, Group Manager, Research & Ratings

Bachelor of Commerce, Economics/Finance dual major, Griffith University. Master of Data Science, Strategy and Leadership, RMIT (ongoing studies)

Joshua Sale is responsible for developing the methodology and delivering Canstar’s flagship Star Ratings, as part of Canstar’s Research team. With tertiary qualifications in economics and finance, he enjoys helping Australians find more suitable financial products by transforming complex calculations into a consumer-friendly Star Rating that explains the values and benefits of different financial products.

As one of Canstar’s company spokespeople, Joshua has participated in print, radio and broadcast interviews with the likes of the Australian Financial Review, news.com.au and Money magazine, along with other leading media outlets, discussing topics such as home loan equity, banking incentive schemes, digital wallets and wider finance trends.

Joshua is known for his ability to simplify complex products and technical information, crunching the data into meaningful insights for consumers about finance. He has analysed several consumer markets across banking, insurance and wealth, and is keenly interested in various topics, ranging from how Australians interact with their superannuation funds, to the dynamic nature of the health insurance market, and collecting and redeeming credit card reward points.

Joshua believes that knowledge is the first step towards empowerment. Even while studying, he facilitated peer-assisted study sessions for economics, and represented his University’s Business School in an academic committee.

You can follow Josh on LinkedIn, and Canstar on X and Facebook.