Today leading health insurer, HBA (www.hba.com.au), announced that single parents will see their premiums reduced by up to 25 percent on certain levels of HBA's hospital cover from 1 April 2007.

Recent regulatory changes within the health insurance industry mean that HBA is now able to offer single parents a reduction on current family premiums.

The changes mean that the amount health funds are required to contribute, for each membership, to an industry fund for sharing high cost medical bills will be reduced for single parent families.
In addition, as an exclusive offer, single parent families joining HBA will receive free health cover on selected levels of hospital cover until April 1.

HBA's General Manager Corporate Development, Mark Engel welcomed the decision to recognise single parent families and that from April HBA will be passing the savings to all single parent families joining HBA.

"We know the additional pressures on single parents and this new initiative is one way HBA can allow access to affordable and quality health care for single parent families," Engel said. "To celebrate we are offering single parent families who join HBA free health cover on selected levels of hospital cover until April 1.

"From April, HBA will have more than 10 levels of hospital cover available to single parents where they can obtain this saving.

"We encourage all single parents to contact HBA to ensure they have the appropriate level of hospital cover to take advantage of this saving in April."

Australia has more than 762,000 single parent families with children under 15 and from April they can select from a wide range of HBA hospital covers to access significant savings on their health insurance.

The exact dollar savings will not be confirmed until after the Federal Government announces the changes to health insurance premiums for 2007.

Currently single parents with HBA' s Hospital Saver cover for families pay $22.75 per week after the 30 percent rebate has been removed.

When the regulatory changes become effective from 1 April 2007, HBA is committed to pass on the full savings to single parents on its applicable health cover products.