Scroll down for a discussion on Individual Health Insurance Plans within the Individual Health Insurance Forum.
"Individual health insurance is very different from group health insurance in some respects. Many people have had group health insurance from a large corporate group ...
"Individual health insurance is very different from group health insurance in some respects. Many people have had group health insurance from a large corporate group plan and that is all that they have ever known. Many have never had to actually pick and choose between different insurance companies and different health plans as all of the decision making was done on their behalf by their employer. Here are a few quick things to keep in minding when searching for individual health insurance. The underwriting for individual health insurance is different than the underwriting for group health insurance. This is great news if you, your spouse and kids are healthy as individual health insurance rates are much cheaper than a comparable group health insurance plan. It could be a cause for concern if you have some health issues in your past as there is the possibility that the application will be declined due to what is called “pre-existing conditions” in your medical history. Most individual health insurance companies will look back into your health history going back about 10 years. If the application is on a fully underwritten basis and there are major health issues such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc. then the application will be declined. (What do you do at this point? Make sure that you keep your current coverage and elect COBRA benefits or any other form of continuation coverage and when that coverage expires you will want to look for a HIPAA eligible health insurance plan). Individual health insurance is much cheaper than group health insurance. Think of it kind of like; in individual health insurance the insurance company gets to pick and choose who they will extend coverage too. They choose those who are healthy and have the lowest risk to the company. Therefore, the rates are much lower than in a group health insurance plan where no matter who applies for coverage, whether healthy or unhealthy, they are offered coverage (and of course everyone that is unhealthy wants health insurance – this principle is called the law of adverse selection if any super technical people just love knowing the actual name of insurance principles). A good way to think about it is if you are healthy and on a group health insurance plan then you are in a sense subsidizing the cost of all of the unhealthy people on the group health insurance plan. Getting quotes for individual health insurance is very easy. Obtaining group health insurance quotes is sometimes a long drawn out process of filling out a census form with all of the employee information and other administrative time consuming tasks. With the ease of the Internet and the simplicity of individual health insurance rates all it takes is a few moments to enter in basic health insurance information and you can view individual health insurance rate quotes online."
Pros:
Individual health insurance is portable and can never be cancelled as long as you pay your premiums on time.
Cons:
Certain conditions may not be insurable
Group plans:
Come one, come all. No waiting periods for maternity, etc. Cost is a factor and losing group coverage under the current system can be problematic for the unhealthy.
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A.M. Hyers
Hyers and Associates, Inc.
What is the major difference between group and individual insurance?
Assuming the person is healthy and qualifies for individual it all comes down to with group the employer is paying some or all of the premium. With individual the insured is paying his premium.
With group, if you get a health condition that requires you to become disabled, you are screwed. Once you exhaust Cobra you are VERY limited with what you can purchase. This is a big problem if you have money but are disabled (as in people who have a good disability income policy.)
With individual, it's non cancelable. So you are still insured as long as you have the money to continue premiums.
If I ever work for anyone again (doubtful) I would NEVER in a million years accept group health insurance. Pay me the money. I'll buy my own insurance.
People get trapped into jobs and have to pass on better opportunities because they are stuck in a group health plan.
If Obama really want to help people with health insurance he needs to completely take it away from employers. The entire country should be one large group that EVERYONE can buy into regardless of where they work.
DON'T get me started on this!!! I tend to ramble on.
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J Scott Burke
Funeral Preplanning
Life Insurance
Medicare Supplements
Long-Term Care Insurance
Annuities
Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee www.newburyfinancial.com
Assuming the person is healthy and qualifies for individual it all comes down to with group the employer is paying some or all of the premium. With individual the insured is paying his premium.
With group, if you get a health condition that requires you to become disabled, you are screwed. Once you exhaust Cobra you are VERY limited with what you can purchase. This is a big problem if you have money but are disabled (as in people who have a good disability income policy.)
With individual, it's non cancelable. So you are still insured as long as you have the money to continue premiums.
If I ever work for anyone again (doubtful) I would NEVER in a million years accept group health insurance. Pay me the money. I'll buy my own insurance.
People get trapped into jobs and have to pass on better opportunities because they are stuck in a group health plan.
If Obama really want to help people with health insurance he needs to completely take it away from employers. The entire country should be one large group that EVERYONE can buy into regardless of where they work.
DON'T get me started on this!!! I tend to ramble on.
Interesting points.
Yep, give me the $1000 a month that the employer would shell out for my group coverage and I'll go out on my own and get what is respondsible for $300 while I invest the rest.
I like it.
Interesting points.
Yep, give me the $1000 a month that the employer would shell out for my group coverage and I'll go out on my own and get what is respondsible for $300 while I invest the rest.
I like it.
Not to many employers allow for this. They need participation to keep the group qualified.
It's also a myth that there is this big of a delta between group and IFP premiums, for similar coverages.
Also, the answer to this whole thread varies a lot from state to state.
Yep, give me the $1000 a month that the employer would shell out for my group coverage and I'll go out on my own and get what is respondsible for $300 while I invest the rest.
I like it.
1. Half the people won't qualify for IFP and good luck finding maternity outside of CA
2. As previously mentioned group has minimum participations rates to avoid adverse selection
3. Individual responsibility? Yeah right... This only applies to a few people who already have money. People were pitching interest only loans a few years back and "invest the rest" - How did that work out?
Not to many employers allow for this. They need participation to keep the group qualified.
It's also a myth that there is this big of a delta between group and IFP premiums, for similar coverages.
Also, the answer to this whole thread varies a lot from state to state.
Dan
For sure most employers can't / won't go for this because they need 75% participation. We were being facetious.
However, we disagree with your statement concerning that there is a "myth" between grp. and indie premiums.
Before the big 65% cobra subsidy; people often worked with us instead of extending their much more expensive grp. coverage.
Logically, as grp. is guaranteed issue coverage (i.e) not medically underwritten, it is a much higher risk for any ins. company to underwrite and administer.
If an ins. company asks an applicant 40 medical questions and checks medical history prior to approval (indie coverage not grp.) then of course they can afford to charge significantly less per month for the coverage. Also many times grp. coverage includes maturnity; indie does not.
Good luck finding decent maternity coverage inside of California except through one of the government plans.
Dan
Good points.
It would be cool if everyone had the option.
Not everyone wants or should have to pay for maturity coverage. Complications of pregnancy are covered under indie plans of course so, if you "can afford" the cost of delivery, THEN work on getting prego?
No kidding on the personal responsibility bit.
It's enough to make me gag.
Had, actually still have, a client who runs a small business ... maybe 4 employees. Get this. Because the employees were healthy and to keep them around, he decided to take out a couple of individual plans on 2 of them. He did this by just adding the cost of the plans onto their salary.
"Yeah, as soon as I get some bills taken care, I'll get right back to ya ..."
That was 4 years ago.
I read that 10,000,000 Americans who live in households that bring in over $70,000 per year have no major medical.
Huh?
These pathetic creatures deserve bankrupsy and should have a lien put on their property. They should leave this world exactly the way they came into it; with nothing. Chances are their off spring will enjoy a similar fate. It's the poor slob working a dead end job with a low salary and no benies who shows up for work every day that i feel sorry for. Often, an immigrant, who endures more b*llsh*t then most "native" Americans could ever imagine in order to have a chance at a better life by coming here, often alone, just to have the OPPORTUNITY to be able to fight for a better life. I'll take one of those over a dozen of these whiney, narcissictic, shallow,take everyting for granted sense of entitlement p*ssies any day of the week.
Recently, we discontinued our $90 per month cable bill only because I began to feel like a moron for shelling out $1000 per year for what amounts to not missing Real Time. Colbert, you can get on the internet, 60 minutes is on regular tv, we use Netflix for movies and I get infinetly more "buzz" out of reading anyways which you can do for next to nothing. Same with da booze. Was it "a conscieous decision?" You betcha.
Point is, people gotta wake up eventually and stop waiting for Uncle Obama or whichever "mesiah" is in vogue at the moment to ride in on a silver charger to save the day. Grow up people. Owners and borrowers, that's all this is. I prefer to try at least to be an owner?
These welfare cases who ride the system on the backs of the rest of us deserve to live at a low standard. Sure, we 'll have to feed your kids (heaven help them) and supply some level of health care through emtala, but we ain't gonna make it easy for ya , you pathetic piece of cr*p. Natural selection. Law of the jungle. Much can be learned from nature, the weak need to die early in order to preserve the species before they breed and weaken the gene pool further. Wanna go to school, learn a trade, yeah, that we should pay for otherwise you take what ever we hand you.
Where does one find this maturity coverage? Perhaps Golddoor would be a prospect.
Gold who?
Forget maturnity.
Are you talking indie or grp?
Indie covers complications. Breach, c - section, etc.
So, what does "maturnity coverage" amount to within indie plans? Having an insurance company pay for the cost of your babies delivery and pre / post natal.
If you can't afford to pay for a child's delivery, then chances are, you won't be able to feed and care for the child. YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT. And that's o.k. Or because it is your "RIGHT" to bear children, just transfer those costs to the American taxpayer vis a vis emtala so we can all pay for your irrespondsibility and or the lousy job your parents did.
Sadly, that kind of thing will happen at times for different reasons, but I'm not going to pretend that this is anything but a lack of planning, accountability and an acceptance of one's own control over their own life at least to some degree.
You are the one asking about maternity. (Notice the spelling).
Covering complications is a state by state thing and not all "indie" plans cover complications.
Time for example (at least in GA) can write a plan that doesn't cover anything related to maternity . . . including complications.
Even if you have maternity coverage, complications usually do not arise until the last trimester. By then you have shelled out several thousand for the event and then complications occur. At that point you start accumulating towards your major med deductible.
Then the baby is born, automatic coverage as long as you notify the carrier within 30 days.
And the baby starts THEIR deductible.
Let's make it more challenging.
Say your complications begin in December. You satisfy your deductible then continue to the new year. Unless the policy has carry over provisions you start a new deductible on January 1.
O.K., gotta keep teach happy – ran this one through spell check.
Yeah sure, if you look around you may find a policy or two that doesn’t cover complications of prego. Personally, I’d never put my name on it, but yes, some will hock anything. In patient deductible carry over is the norm, for plans of quality, but there may be exceptions.
It appears we are in agreement that adding a maternity benefit to an individual policy even if you can find a carrier that still offers one, is unwise / pointless?
Also, some of us work out of more than one state.
Frankly, who wants to deal with clients that are of child bearing age anyway? We don’t. Low premium / retention and they refer you to others of their ilk.
* Just remembered; United did discontinue that quarterly roll over deal into the new year.
FWIW, a fellow agent has a client with a history of difficult pregnancy's. Every carrier she tried refused to issue a policy.
I made a few inquiries and confirmed that at least one carrier has the ability to write a full maternity waiver. Which is better? Coverage for everything except maternity related expenses or no coverage at all?
Deductible carry over is, like everything else, a state by state situation. I am told, but I have not confirmed, that GA is the only state that mandates deductible credit carry over.
Spelling errors occur even in the best of us. But when someone makes the same error over and over it is an indication they have no idea how to spell that particular word. Spelling and grammatical errors portray the individual in a bad light. Poor first impression.
Oleg used to post here with some frequency. It was obvious that English was not his primary language. He used a mostly automated system so it probably never showed in client dealings.
Spelling errors and poor grammar can cause folks to lower their opinion of your knowledge and ability.
Although a lot of agents get upset when they are corrected I'd rather have someone point out an error on this board rather than having a client read an email where I spell "a lot "alot" or "allot." It makes it seem like you dropped out of the 7th grade.
To be honest, really don't understand most of these common errors in spelling. Some of the words that are often misspelled are covered literally in the 4th or 5th grade and there's absolutely no way you're writing high school papers with the errors I've seen some agents make.
My son's in the 1st grade and gets marked down if he used "they're" instead of "their" in a sentence.....1st grade.
------------------------------------ Health Insurance Agents: Training, Support, Discounts, E&O for $440 www.ihiaa.com
FWIW, a fellow agent has a client with a history of difficult pregnancy's. Every carrier she tried refused to issue a policy.
I made a few inquiries and confirmed that at least one carrier has the ability to write a full maternity waiver. Which is better? Coverage for everything except maternity related expenses or no coverage at all?
Deductible carry over is, like everything else, a state by state situation. I am told, but I have not confirmed, that GA is the only state that mandates deductible credit carry over.
Spelling errors occur even in the best of us. But when someone makes the same error over and over it is an indication they have no idea how to spell that particular word. Spelling and grammatical errors portray the individual in a bad light. Poor first impression.
Oleg used to post here with some frequency. It was obvious that English was not his primary language. He used a mostly automated system so it probably never showed in client dealings.
Spelling errors and poor grammar can cause folks to lower their opinion of your knowledge and ability.
Just an observation . . .
So does going out of your way to try and appear superior.
Another observation.
Didn’t realize that this was a preliminary to Scripps National.
My bad.
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