How does iSelect make money?
We are not a typical health insurance advisor. The role we play in the market is two fold. For consumers, we are a comparison and advisory service offering recommendations from our approved list of products. For the private health insurance industry, we are an outsourced marketing channel offering a more cost effective way of gaining new members.
The fees we are paid go to activities including our marketing campaigns across TV and radio, investing in our patent protected Customer Decision Support (CDS) system technology and investing in the nearly 250 Australians we employ.
Critically, our fee arrangements mean that our participating funds do not pay us unless we deliver a member. We take on the risk that our marketing will deliver members. This means that by working with us no private health insurance fund is putting marketing money at "risk". This also provides a vital service for small to medium sized funds that are looking to expand their product awareness nationally but can't afford to take that level of risk.
Our marketing efficiency comes from creating a pool of marketing dollars. By allowing our participating health funds access to these marketing dollars, iSelect is increasing real choice for consumers in the market.
Ultimately, by creating more choice for consumers and driving more efficient marketing in the industry this helps to keep the cost of private health insurance down.
iSelect may receive a fee from participating funds when a health insurance policy is purchased through iSelect.
Key things you should note about our fee arrangements:
- We do not mark-up our policies in any way
- Our service is free for you to use
- Policy prices charged are the same whether you buy through us or directly with the fund save for a few limited offers. We guarantee to beat these offers through our Best Deal Guarantee
- Our consultants and our policy matching engine do not take into account the fees paid to us from our participating funds when making recommendations
As we incur all of our costs such as marketing, set up and transfer of your policy (if you are moving funds), compliance and sales at the time of purchase of a policy our preferred fee structure is to be paid a one-time fee. Most of our participating health funds operate under this fee structure, as our services offers operational efficiencies compared to traditional marketing channels and the fees paid are low-risk as they are only paid once a member is delivered and retained.
Fees may be paid as either:
- One-time fee - We may receive a one-time fee from our participating funds when we deliver a member to a health fund. This fee does not exceed half of the first year premium and once this fee is paid we receive no more fees from the fund.
- Recurring Fee - We may receive fees while you remain a member of the health fund, but in all cases these fees will not exceed 6.5% of premium collected over an average policy life - around 10 years.