About Plain Cover

Plain Cover explains Australian private health insurance using real numbers, from the bodies that set them, with the date we checked them printed on the page.

Why we built it

Private health insurance is one of the larger bills an Australian household pays, and much of what you find about it online is out of date or unsourced. Search for what the Medicare Levy Surcharge costs you and you will often get last year's thresholds, or a number with no source.

We think the answer belongs in the first paragraph, the source belongs next to the figure, and the date belongs where you can see it. That is the entire idea.

What we do differently

• Primary sources only. ATO, Department of Health, APRA, the Ombudsman, AIHW and the fund's own Product Disclosure Statement (PDS). Never another comparison site.
• Dated figures. Every number carries the date it was checked, so you can tell at a glance whether it is current.
• A published method. Where our figures come from and how they are checked is set out in our methodology.
• Disclosure at the top, not the bottom. Any page that can earn us a fee says so above the fold.
• Dated changes. When a figure changes or we get one wrong, we fix it and note the date and the change on the page, instead of quietly editing.

Who runs it

Plain Cover was founded in 2026 and is based in Australia. We are a small publisher of guides. We do not sell insurance or give personal advice.

Guides are written in-house under the Plain Cover name, and every figure in them is cited to the source it came from, under our editorial policy. Each guide shows the date it was last updated.

What we are not

• Not a health fund: we do not issue policies or pay claims.
• Not your adviser: nothing here takes your income, health or circumstances into account, so it is general information, not financial or health advice.
• Not a broker: we do not compare policies or arrange cover. If you request a quote, it comes from a commercial partner.
• Not the government: the free official comparison service is at privatehealth.gov.au.
• Not the PDS: the fund's Product Disclosure Statement is the document you are actually buying. Read it.

Contact

Corrections and questions go to [email protected]. If you have found an error, quote the page and the figure so we can check it against the source. Complaints go to the Plain Cover complaints team at [email protected]. Our complaints page explains how.