If you're in the marketplace to buy your own medical health insurance coverage it can save you yourself time and money by shopping and comparing policies right on-line. Sites focused on giving you quotes on various insurance policy allow it to be very easy to get an idea of what your coverage and prices is going to be. However, be forewarned that we now have some pitfalls in making use of an insurance agent when i discovered inside the past year.
As a self-employed person, I carry my very own health and life insurance plan for my loved ones. When making the move from Nj to New york in 2004 I knew a couple of things about our overall health insurance:
1. I'd have to look for a health insurance plan provider covering New york.
2. Rates will be cheaper compared to New Jersey, with prices being about 50 % of things i had been paying with slight better coverage.
Several weeks before we moved I contacted a common internet insurance agent and received quotes. We selected one company and received the paperwork in the agent about 10 days before our move. To be honest, I wish I'd started the procedure a little earlier as our free time was dedicated toward preparing and making the move. So, I wound up packing the paperwork with my own stuff and was just able to complete it and submit it 1 week after our arrival in New york.
Dealing with the on-line insurance professional was a simple task, but I soon learned that they were an additional step in the covering work, one which only slowed up our approval.
Once the paperwork was received through the broker, they acknowledged exactly the same via email and mentioned they would review our package before forwarding it towards the health insurance society.
Over the following couple of weeks we received messages in the insurance broker stating the next:
1. We are within the work of reviewing the application.
2. We have sent your covering on the insurance policy society.
3. The insurance plan society has your covering and you will be reviewing it within one week.
4. The insurance coverage company expects a delay in reviewing the application due to the high amount of applications received.
5. Please not contact the insurance coverage company directly; we'll keep you posted regarding the status of the application. Yeah, right.
Originally, i was assured through the insurance agent the health insurance society would review and approve our covering within fourteen days. Follow up telephone calls by us towards the broker together with several exchanges of emails says this was not possible. In addition, whenever we contacted the insurance policy society directly – in the encouragement from the agent – the insurance society struggled finding our covering. Inside a few days the covering was discovered sitting in another department; our contact in the health insurance society blamed the broker for sending the info to the wrong address.
As it ended up, the original insurance plan quote we received online was off just by over 20%. When the health insurance society determined that particular pre existing conditions must be factored in our rates rose accordingly. Obviously, when working with the web agent we knew the rate quoted wasn’t ‘absolute’ however the big jump was still being a bitter pill to swallow.
Among our thoughts at that time in the process were:
1. Had we known in advance that our “final rate” will be so high, we'd have shopped around more.
2. Because of the delays and also the passage of your time, we required to complete the covering process as our coverage using the NJ health provider will have to be canceled, preferably towards the end of the year.
By the center of December, a complete ten weeks as we submitted our paperwork, we received official notification our covering was approved and now we were covered. Over the last couple of weeks from the lengthy application we contacted the insurance society directly many times to learn what are the status in our application was. Never during the process were we assured that people would receive approval; essentially i was told that coverage would begin pending approval.
In conclusion, I provide the following strategies for shopping for medical health insurance:
1. Comparison shop on-line. Get quotations with the on-line brokers to obtain a general concept of what your prices is going to be. If you have pre-existing conditions, the costs quoted won't be reflected inside your quote.
2. Limit the list of companies quoted to 3 and then contact them directly. Bypass the broker because they are an unnecessary additional part of what is really not a quick approval process.
3. If you want insurance by a specific date, apply well ahead of time to allow for delays, for misplaced paperwork, alterations in your covering, etc. Our insurance policy was approved effective a particular date, but i was able to move it to a different date to coincide using the dropping in our NJ doctor.
In all, the knowledge was wearisome sometimes and a real eye opener. I understand you see ads constantly for online insurance plan quotes. I'm not saying to prevent the sites, but please think what we should went through before utilizing an online agent exclusively.
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