Finding Affordable Health Insurance

Health Care Costs

Over the past several years, health care costs have taken a drastic increasing trend. Not far behind are health insurance premiums. It is not hard to understand these cost increases as our population ages and medical technology continues to improve, but someone looking for an individual health policy may have a hard time finding premiums priced affordably. To receive a competitive quote from several top insurers, visit http://www.dontoverspend.com.

Health Insurance Eligibility

When shopping for health insurance, the two factors primarily taken into account by an insurance company, are an applicant’s age and health. As a rule of thumb, the healthier and younger a person is, the more inexpensive the coverage will be. Most companies will accept any age up to about 63 or 64. An applicant above 64 will be eligible for a Medicare supplement in most cases.

Policy Choices

There are many types of policies available. The most common health insurance plan offered is a major medical policy. The features that distinguish major medicals from other types of plans vary by state, but in general, major medicals are well-rounded policies with very high lifetime maximums and provide coverage for most major occurrences. Specified benefit plans are another type of policy that is becoming widely available. These policies are, in most cases, less expensive than a major medical policy, but the overall coverage is much more restrictive. Many of these policies include severe internal limits that most people would find inadequate in the case of a large hospital bill. However, an advantage of these plans is the ability for someone with substandard health to qualify when perhaps a major medical plan would not accept the risk. Many of these specified benefit policies can be found coupled with association memberships, which do little to improve coverage in most cases. The health savings account, or HSA, is a fairly new player in the health insurance world. Health savings accounts are tax-exempt accounts used in conjunction with high-deductible insurance policies. The money deposited into the HSA is tax-exempt if used to pay qualified healthcare expenses such as doctor’s visits and deductibles. The benefit of this versus having a low deductible plan, is the difference in premium that would have been spent for the low deductible policy, can be deposited into the health savings account and will rollover from one year to the next. If there are no or few healthcare expenses for the year, the money is not lost and rolls over to the next year to cover qualified medical expenses.

Finding the Best Quotes

The most cost-effective way to shop for health insurance coverage is to work with an independent insurance agent. An independent agent works with several insurance companies, which provides the opportunity for the best price and benefits depending upon an individual’s situation. Although, there are some agents that primarily represent only one company and are often referred to as “captive agents.” Working with “captive agents” is not ideal, as the agent does not have the ability to “shop around” to find the best rates and policies available. A reputable agent should never use “high pressure” tactics to close a sale. Insurance is an important financial decision that should involve obtaining multiple quotes and doing plenty of research before making a decision. Several online quoting companies encourage this and provide quotes from several agents and companies. For the top online quoting companies available, check out www.dontoverspend.com.