If you have private health cover, your fund sends you a Private Health Insurance Tax Statement each year. Most of it is straightforward: your fund name, your membership number, what you paid, and what rebate you received.
Then there is a box labelled L, with a number like 30 or 31 in it. That is your benefit code, and it trips a lot of people up.
What the benefit code actually means
The benefit code is shorthand for two things at once:
- The age of the oldest person covered by the policy
- When in the year the premium was paid
That is all it is. It is not a rating, a policy tier, or anything to do with your level of cover.
| Code | Oldest person on the policy | Premium paid |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | Under 65 | 1 July to 31 March |
| 31 | Under 65 | 1 April to 30 June |
| 35 | 65 to 69 | 1 July to 31 March |
| 36 | 65 to 69 | 1 April to 30 June |
| 40 | 70 or over | 1 July to 31 March |
| 41 | 70 or over | 1 April to 30 June |
Why the oldest person, not you?
The government rebate on private health insurance gets more generous as you get older. For a couples or family policy, the rebate is worked out on the oldest person covered.
So if you are 58 and your partner is 66, your policy uses the 65 to 69 band even though you are under 65. This is the most common reason people pick the wrong code: they use their own age instead of the policy’s.
Why does my statement have two lines?
The rebate percentage is adjusted on 1 April each year. If your premiums span that date, which they usually do, your fund splits the year into two parts and reports each separately.
That means one policy can show up as two lines, for example 30 and 31, each with its own premium and rebate amount. Both lines belong on your tax return. Do not merge them and do not drop one.
In some years the government leaves the rebate percentage unchanged at 1 April. When that happens the two lines are worth the same to you, but your fund may still report them separately.
What you need to do
Usually nothing. When you lodge with One Click Life, your health fund has normally already reported your policy to the ATO, and we pull the benefit code straight through with everything else.
You only need to enter it yourself if you are adding cover that we have not shown you automatically, for example if your fund reported late or you have a policy the ATO does not have on file. In that case we work the code out from the premium and rebate amounts wherever we can.
If we cannot work it out with certainty, we leave it blank and ask you, rather than guessing. Copy it straight from box L on your statement. Your fund’s statement is the authoritative source, so if it ever disagrees with anything else, go with the statement.
