As you all know, a lot has happened since my last update and I thought I would take this opportunity to give you some more information about the sale of the Health Fund to HBF.

In November we announced that HBF had entered into an agreement to purchase Queensland Country Health Fund from Queensland Country Bank. This announcement was preceded by a thorough and lengthy negotiation period to ensure all parties affected by the sale had their needs addressed.

For Queensland Country it was important that the purchaser of the Health Fund was member owned, was not for profit and had a member centric view of business. It was also important that the fantastic Queensland Country staff were looked after and that the sale would provide the bank with the necessary funds to enable its continued growth. The sale negotiated with HBF ticked all of these boxes.

It is important to point out that HBF are a significant organisation focused solely on Private Health Insurance. Their financial strength and position as the 5th largest Health Fund in Australia means that our Members will be able to benefit from greater resources than ever before.

Queensland Country Health Fund is a successful business, although it lacks the scale to fully invest in the systems that it requires to continue to be competitive in the future, having HBF as the parent company alleviates this problem.

HBF also realises that Queensland Country Health Fund is a much-loved organisation and they are very focused on member outcomes and that is why the Queensland Country Health Fund brand will continue for the foreseeable future. It is also why there will be no changes to products for existing members (except those that would normally occur as we continue to review the benefits and premiums in our usual way). Likewise, our dental practices will continue to operate as they are currently, with the same friendly staff and levels of service our Members expect.

Our staff were offered positions to continue within their current roles to ensure that Queensland Country Health Fund could continue to operate as is, which was a great outcome. When you call or interact with Queensland Country Health Fund staff they will continue to be based here in North Queensland.

Our staff are excited about the opportunities working for a great organisation like HBF will provide and will continue to offer all our Members the level of service that they are used to. In short for our Members and staff, the only change is that we are no longer owned by Queensland Country Bank.

I look forward to giving you all further updates in future editions of Living Healthy and want to thank you again for your continued support of Queensland Country Health Fund.

Glenn Seri

Executive Manager