What kind of travel insurance should I use for my move to Australia?
I am looking at getting travel insurance but am not sure how long I will need it for until I get set up, or what other types of insurance maybe required?
keep in mind that there is a reciprocal care agreement between nz and aussie. As an NZ Citizen one is entitled to free emergency hospital care (unless you are travelling to australia specifically for treatment). general care is not covered under this agreement, but is covered by medicare, which you can apply for once you are there.
we too are moving to Australia. We have booked our flights through Air NZ and purchased a months travel insurance, this will hopefully cover us until we organize doctors and medicare.
you may consider to apply for a gold credit card with the bank which comes with 90 days free travel insurance when you purchase your ticket on the credit card
and once you arrived here. you can consider to setup your health/content and other insurance that you needed.
Apart from the automatic emergency reciprical arrangement (Aussies in NZ and visa versa) you can buy long term health insurance from many insurance companies. I buy the AIG annual TRAVEL cover for my family at a bit more than NZD1,000 and this gives pretty much all I could want. BUT I travel a lot including back and forth to NZ regularly. You will need to check it out with AIG in NZ (or a good broker) to make sure the cover is still ok if you are living in OZ. I think it will be ok if you can show you are not entitled to full medicare cover until ou get residency sorted out.
For some people permanent residencey is not good as there are tax concessions for foreign (to Autralia) earned income. Check it out for example if you do have money in the bank in NZ but do not live here you can pay a 2% tax rate and the income is noit taxed in Oz if you are not a permanent (and an SCV is not a permanent visa. Cool eh!
Some New Zealand travel insurance policies say you are not covered if you "don't intend to return to New Zealand". What are you supposed to do if you go over to Australia looking for work?