Where to Get Cheap Group Health Insurance Quotes Online
With all the different group health insurance plans out there, finding the cheapest plan with the best coverage can be a real pain in the you-know-what. Here’s an easy way to find cheap group health insurance quotes online.
Group Health Insurance Plans
Before you go shopping for group health insurance the first thing you need to do is sit down and figure out what type of insurance and what kinds of coverage you really need.
Most employers opt for managed health care plans – HMOs, PPOs, and POSs. These plans provide you with a network of health care providers which everyone in the plan goes to when they’re ill.
HMOs restrict you to using physicians within the network, while PPOs and POSs let you see non-network physicians for an extra fee. HMOs are the cheapest of the managed health care plans.
Group Health Insurance Coverage
Group health insurance plans all come with different coverages. Here are the main coverages you should consider:
* Hospital coverage pays for your hospital room and medical services.
* Surgical coverage pays for surgeons fees and surgical expenses.
* Physicians coverage pays for doctors’ office visits and hospital visits.
* Major medical coverage pays for catastrophic injury or illness expenses.
* Prescription drug coverage pays for all or part of prescription drug costs.
Comparison Shop
The difference in group health insurance plans from one insurance company to another can be $1,000 per person or more, so the first step toward getting cheap group health insurance is to comparison shop.
Thanks to the Internet you don’t have to visit a bunch of insurance companies or call their agents on the phone. All it takes is a couple of clicks of your mouse to get group insurance quotes from companies in your area.
Some of these websites offer insurance tips and advice, and some even let you talk with an insurance expert via their online chat service. (See link below.)
Visit http://www.LowerRateQuotes.com/health-insurance.html or click on the following link to get group health insurance quotes online from top-rated companies in your area and see how much you can save. You can get more health insurance tips by checking out their “Articles” section.
ryan@thesatellitetvguide.com
http://www.articlesbase.com/insurance-articles/where-to-get-cheap-group-health-insurance-quotes-online-124595.html
Group health insurance more expensive than individual?
On Aetna’s HDHP 3000 plan, I was quoted $120/month online for individual coverage, whereas our HR firm quoted $279/month for Aetna’s HDHP 3000 in group coverage. I’ve always heard that group coverage is cheaper than individual. What’s going on here?
Group coverage is almost always more expensive than individual insurance because of the mandated coverage that most people don’t use and because they must cover everyone in the company no matter their health or age. The main reason most people think that it is cheaper is because the employer will usually pick up a good percentage of the charge.
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Independent Agent
Group is always more expensive, because it provides better coverage. You get what you pay for.
Watch out for individual plans with lifetime maximums of $125,000. Once you hit that lifetime maximum, your individual policy covers nothing more for the rest of your life. Also, the circumstances causing you to reach that level will likely make you uninsurable.
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I LOVE group health insurance
Zarnev is correct in his statement that group coverage is tradtionally more expensive because they are required to cover everyone in the group. Young or old, healthy or sick. This aggregation will cause the cost (compared with individual coverage) to be higher in most cases. The individual plan requires you to go through underwriting and they can put a rider (exclusion) on certain conditions or decline to cover you at all. Your employer is also required to pay a percentage of your premium. The minimum, in most states, is 50% of the employee only cost of insurance. Many employers are not contributing towards dependents coverage and therefore the cost can escalate. A good strategy for them is to cover the dependents on individual plans and let the employee take advantage of the employer contribution to help offset the cost.
Zuez was partially correct that the coverages can be different. You can see the lifetime benefits be different ($125,000 vs. $5.0 million) but many individual plans have comparable lifetime amounts. The biggest difference I have seen in individual vs group plans is the amount individual plans will pay in a year for prescriptions. Many plans have a $5000 annual maximum payouts for them. Maternity is also not covered by many individual plans
In regards to your coverage. If you are healthy, I would take the individual plan. Your plan is a qualfied High Deductible plan that will allow you to contribute to a Health Savings Account. I would put the amount you would have normally paid for coverage in the HSA account and now you have funded it with $1800 tax free dollars. Your health insurance premium on an individual plan will be after tax, but you will save on the other contribution and can use those dollars to pay for services.
Hopefully, this helps.
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President of a health insurance brokerage
Good question and a common misconception. For most people, individual health insurance is less expensive than group plans. There are a variety of reasons for this, with a few "biggies" that stick out:
1. Group health plans have to, generally, take everyone who is eligible for coverage, often regardless of health. Individual plans are allowed to accept you, turn you down, or offer you the "yes, but…" plan ("we’ll take you, but we want a waiting period before we cover your pre-existing health condition," etc., etc.). Because of this "extra" flexibility the individual plans have (they don’t have to take everybody) they’re usually able to lower the price compared to a group plan.
2. Group plans are subject to more "micro-managing" by our government in the form of "mandated" benefits (for example, they often MUST cover maternity benefits, mental illness, chiropractic care, autism treatments, eating disorders, and so forth). This is not to say that these "required" benefits should or should not be covered, but when the government requires a group plan to do so it raises the price. (State & federal legislators often pass the regulations to appease special interest groups and then, when the health plan prices go up to reflect the required increase in benefits, the public gets mad at the insurance company for raising prices instead of the legislators for requiring it <sigh>…. oh, well.) Anyway, more regulations & requirements mean higher prices. Individual health plans are often not required to have all this.
3. Most group plan require maternity coverage (an employer is prohibited in most states to "discriminate" against the female employees regarding maternity; therefore, it’s required). Most individual plan don’t offer maternity at all or, if they do, they have seriously curtailed benefits and/or long waiting periods before benefits would start.
Need individual quotes to compare with a group plan?
1. Go to http://www.nahu.org & find a local broker (this is the professional association for agents like me who specialize in health insurance, both group and individual).
2. Go to http://www.genesis-grp.com (my site) and run your own set of plans and prices.
3. Do an online search for "health insurance quotes AND <your state>" and get some quotes.
Hope this helps a bit… have a nice evening!
References :
http://www.nahu.org/consumers/findagent.cfm
http://www.genesis-grp.com
http://www.acforrest.com
You can easily check your minimal health care rates in internet, for example here – healthplans.my-age.net
References :
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