It helps to be insured. It could be your car, your home, or even your motorcycle. If you insure these, it’s only practical that you also insure your health, right? So you have health insurance and disability life insurance and other kinds of insurance.

Another insurance you should have is the mortgage disability insurance. This is because your home is a single large investment that you have done. Think of all the hours you toiled so you could afford your abode.

A number of people realize the importance to insure against loss of homes. But they ignore the fact that paying the mortgage might not be completed – because we are mortal. Let’s say we get sick or die, paying the mortgage will not be that easy.

That is why there’s mortgage disability insurance. Either of these two events cannot affect the mortgage payment of the house if you have this.

Mortgage disability insurance is specifically designed to provide you with the funds you need in order for you to meet the responsibilities you have for your mortgage loan. It ties you up to three years, just in case you become disabled during that span.

It is very affordable especially if you are a two-income family. Think of you and your spouse insured in paying the mortgage.

Let’s say something happens to you or your spouse, you wouldn’t have to worry about losing your home, just as long as you have mortgage disability insurance.

Another scenario is you being bedridden. It won’t be that easy to pay the mortgage. At least with mortgage disability insurance, you get to pay the bill just in case you do become an invalid and cannot earn the income that you need in order to pay your home.

The reality is the foreclosures of most mortgages are the results of disabilities. The homeowner can no longer meet his end of the bargain on a financial level because of this.

Since the contract states that foreclosure will take place if any even happens, that is the ending of the whole mortgage drama. With the mortgage disability insurance, the homeowner wouldn’t have to face that scenario.

If you are smart enough, you wouldn’t agree to be a statistic. With your mortgage disability insurance plan approved, you are secure that your home will be paid in sickness or in health.

If you do get injured, you can recover easily because you don’t have to worry about not paying the bills.

Insurance-what a big topic. There are many kinds of insurance. Regardless of the kind, here are ten tips to guide you in making wise choices and avoiding paying more than you need to.

Health insurance is not always the first financial consideration for young adults. After all, when you’re young you feel healthy and don’t think you’ll have the need. Actually, health insurance is one of the most important financial protections you can get when you are young.

Many young people don’t often realize that they are usually dropped by their parents’ health insurance coverages when they either turn 18 or finish being a full-time student by age 23 or so. However, many young adults also feel like they don’t really need it either. Yet a single accident or serious illness can end up costing thousands of dollars.

Financial advisers strongly recommend that young adults maintain some sort of health insurance coverage. But how do you go about getting affordable health insurance?

First, check with your employer to see if they offer health insurance benefits. If so, and you are eligible, this is probably your best bet as far as the types of coverages you get at a low cost.

If your employer doesn’t offer health insurance, or you’re not eligible you can shop around for an individual health insurance policy. There are policies available that provide coverages for catastrophic need at affordable premiums. Usually, these have limitations to the coverages and feature high deductibles. However, they are still better than going uninsured.

Remember, health insurance costs can vary quite a bit from company to company, and some companies offer policies especially for people in your situation. Plan coverages also vary from company to company. Make sure to spend some time shopping around for comparison quotes and ask lots of questions so you fully understand your coverages and obligations.

If you are a full-time college student, you may be able to get student insurance through your college or buy shopping online.

You may also be able to participate in a form of group insurance through an association. If you are a member of an association, or are aware of any in your area that you can join, check to see if they offer access to health insurance.

You won’t like the answer to that particular question, but the facts are the facts. Health insurance rates are going up because of us. That’s right, we are the authors of our own misfortune if you will. Very simply we do not look after ourselves and by doing that, we send the price of health care rates sky high.

We drink, we smoke, we’re aging (OK we can’t do anything about that) and we don’t work out. Our obesity rate as a nation is abominable. The health care costs of treating alcoholics, smokers and obese patients are phenomenal.

It’s not just that we don’t take care of ourselves either. The other factors that drive up the cost of health insurance rates are medical inflation and medical errors. Now you might be thinking medical errors must cost a bundle. Actually, they are declining – a good thing by any standards.

The biggest area of problems is medical inflation. Just try to find out what a surgery will cost you, and good luck on that. Let’s say for instance you needed an appendectomy. You want to know what that will cost. No hospital or doctors office will give you that figure because they have no idea what they will bill you for until they bill you.

Surgery has almost become an a la carte menu where the doctor (and hospital) picks and chooses what you will get billed for. From the cost of dispensing pills to the cost of the pill itself and from the cost of the extra pillow you wanted to the extra dressing required for your incision. You get billed for each item. No wonder bills are so high and they can’t tell you what it costs.

However, having said that, it’s interesting that doctor’s offices are able to tell the biggest insurance companies paying the freight how much it costs to stay in hospital per day and what a certain surgery costs. See what’s happening here? The doctor gets paid a rate by the insurance company and then bills you extra for other things. Nasty, but it works.

If you want lower health care rates, start taking care of yourself. Don’t smoke, don’t drink to excess and get moving and work out. The healthier you are, the less expensive your health care costs tend to be.

Health Insurance; COBRA; OBRA; HIPAA; Medicare. If asked, could you state that you knew that all 5 of these topics had the same thing in common: medical insurance coverage for you and, perhaps, your family? Would you know the qualifications for each? Well, in this article, we will discuss them. For a timeline that depicts, graphically, the time relationship between them, please see the timeline in http://www.disabilitykey.com.

HEALTH INSURANCE Coverage from Work

If we are lucky, we, and/or our spouse, work for a company that provides, as a benefit, health insurance coverage for us and our family. If so, we are very lucky. Even if that is true, there are some key things that you might want to look at to see if you have ENOUGH coverage.

1) From your Human Resources Department (or wherever else you would go to get information about your health insurance) get what is called a “Summary Plan Description” (SPD). This document should be kept where you can always find it, as it contains all the information you will need about what your insurance covers and what it doesn’t.

2) Look up “Coverage” and “non-coverage” in your SPD.

These will tell you what your plan covers and doesn’t cover. You need to see if, perhaps, you or one of the covered members of your family has a condition or circumstance that might not be covered, where you need additional coverage. For example, let’s say that your family has a history of cancer; perhaps your plan restricts the number of hospitalization days for care; or, restricts the days per condition. In this case, (like my children) you might want to get additional “cancer insurance” (I think that AFLAC might provide this type of coverage).

It would be a good idea to contact a Health Insurance benefit Broker and ask him/her to read your SPD and see if you have any gaps in coverage. They then can help you supplement coverage BEFORE YOU NEED IT!

NO HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE

You might be one of the growing members of our society that, through one circumstance or another, does NOT have health insurance coverage for your family. In this case, I strongly encourage you to contact a Health Insurance Broker and get immediate coverage of what is called “catestrophic” (not sure if I spelled this correctly) coverage. In this type of coverage, you will generally have large deductibles, but will have coverage if, say, one of you has to go into the hospital.

CONTACTING A BENEFITS INSURANCE BROKER

Whenever you call or email a Health Insurance Broker, it is very important to prepare ahead of time. WHAT, specifically are you looking for; how much can you afford to pay every month; what circumstances do you want to make sure that your family is covered for. In this way, you can make sure to focus on your critical needs.

COBRA

COBRA is an acronym ( how can I spell acronym correctly, yet not be sure that I spelled catestrophic correctly?) that stands for: Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Basically, it is a federal law that allows you to pay for your Company-paid health insurance, as an active member, if you no longer work for that company for, generally 18 additional months.

1) COBRA is “triggered” (that is, you, or a covered member of your family, become eligible for COBRA) by events such as the following: resignation from the company; termination (FOR ANY REASON) from the company; divorce of a spouse; a covered chile’s birthday makes them ineligible for coverage. These are the main “triggering” events for COBRA.

2) Now, when eligible for COBRA, you will be asked to pay for 100% to 105% of the company’s employee/employee and family coverage amount. You should get a letter from your company explaining what that amount will be. BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO TAKE COBRA, there are some important things for you to consider.

What will be your cost, and what will be the coverage for that cost?
Sometimes the cost is too much for the coverage. In these cases, you might want to select HIPAA coverage, instead (see HIPAA below).

Or, you might just want to get catestrophic coverage as was mentioned earlier, and wait for full coverage under your next job.

Part of this decision should be whether or not you or a member of your family has what is called a “pre-exisitng coverage” condition.

Here again, before automatically taking COBRA, it would be wise to contact a Benefits Insurance Broker and give him/her all of your options, and get their input. I have worked extensively with a Benefits Insurance Broker, and he is absolutely fantastic!

OBRA

What, you ask, is OBRA? I’ve never heard of it, you say, and no one I know has heard of it either! Well, that’s because, 99% of Human Resource or Benefit folks that I know have never heard of it! OBRA is a federal law that was passed that extends COBRA for an additional 11 months FOR DISABILITY PURPOSES ONLY!! Why, you ask, is this important? Thanks for asking, let’s see if I can explain.

If you are as nieve (did I spell this wrong too? sorry!) as I was when I first started looking to bridge my health insurance from working to Medicare, I assumed that when I got through all of the hoops to qualify for SSDI (Social Security Disabililty Insurance) I’d IMMEDIATELY be eligible for Medicare, RIGHT??? WRONG!!!!

When you FINALLY qualify for SSDI, you have to wait for 5 months before you get your first check. AND, the rules state that, you are eligible for Medicare 2 years (24 months) FROM THE DATE OF YOUR FIRST SSDI PAYMENT. Well, if you add 24 + 5 you get, 29 months between qualifying for SSDI, and Medicare coverage.

OK, I said earlier that COBRA is for 18 months of coverage. Well guess what 18 months of COBRA + 11 months of OBRA equal – 29 months!

BUT, there are two catches to OBRA; first of all, you have a small window of 30 – 60 days to apply ( this window opens the date of your SSDI approval); and, it can cost up to 150% of your plan coverage amount. BUT, if you have a “previously existing condition” this might be the best way for you to proceed.

Again, it is important to contact a Health Insurance Broker to help you with the risk/cost ratio of all of these situations.

It is also improtant to know all of these deadlines as you plan to ensure that you and your family have important health insurance coverage.

HIPAA

HIPAA is a federal law that is called, briefly, the “portability” law for health insurance. What that means is that when you leave a group (read company-paid plan), the carrier that provided that plan, must offer to you, another plan, different from COBRA, when you leave the group coverage. Generally this will be what is called a “bare bones” plan. Again, the best thing for you to do is to call/email a Health Insurance/Benefits Broker with all of your information: SPD, COBRA info, HIPAA info, needs, cost limits, and let him/her help you find the optimum plan coverage for you.

MEDICARE

OK, now, finally, we’ve reached Medicare! BUT (you really didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?) if you have qualified for Medicare because of disability, there are RESTRICTIONS (of COURSE there are!).

First of all, if you are qualifying for Medicare because of disability, you are probably under the age of 65 – normal retirement age.

Medicare coverage does NOT cover prescription drugs, which, those of us with disabilities probably need, and which cost lots.

But, Congress prescribed that states (all but 11) offer what is called “Medicare supplement” plans, some of which do offer prescription coverages.
BUT, these plans ARE NOT REQUIRED TO, and do not, offer these medicare supplement plans that offer prescription coverages to folks who qualify under age 65! So, if you are qualifying because of disability, your medical insurance plan doesn’t cover one of your primary cost expenditures!

Here again is where you need to contact a health insurance/benefit broker. Again, he/she can work with you, and your specific circumstances, to get you the coverage you need.

Hope that this information was helpful to you. If you have any questions, please feel to ask them by commenting on this blog, and I’ll be happy to get you an answer.

Nowadays, you can find a variety of health insurance plans in the United States and North Carolina, the home of many brilliant physicians, hospitals, and reliable health insurance companies.

With the cost of health care getting higher and higher, you are likely to land in deep trouble if you have a serious accident or a major illness. Buying health insurance can save you from a financial disaster. Armed with health insurance, you can protect yourself and your family if you are in need of expensive medical treatment. In that case, a third party will pay your expenses, which can be an insurance company or even your employer.

Most people receive health insurance through their jobs. Called group insurance, it is less expensive and in many cases the employer takes responsibility of the total or partial cost. Although some employers offer only one health insurance plan, some others offer you a choice of plans: a fee-for-service plan, a health maintenance organization (HMO), or a preferred provider organization (PPO). Most of the plans have some kind of managed care program to help control costs. All HMOs, PPOs, and several fee-for-service plans, have managed care. In case you don’t get this benefit from your employer, you can go for an individual policy.

Health insurance companies in North Carolina offer several plans for individuals, couples and families. In NC, you find group health insurance programs for employees of all sizes of businesses. Health insurance plans in North Carolina are not beyond your reach because you can select a policy that matches your budget. In North Carolina many public and private employers offer a managed care option to employees. The state of North Carolina offers many types of managed care options to state employees and their dependents, and it also has a portion of the Medicaid population enrolled in managed care plans.

There are a number of health insurance companies licensed and approved to do business in North Carolina. The choice is yours.

If you are between the ages of 50 and 65 and you are going to be looking for health insurance or are looking for health insurance you need some help. This is a tough age (of course what age isn’t starting with the terrible twos) because you are at a prime age to start developing health problems. Statistically speaking and statistics is the only language insurance companies speak, the insurance company can predict they are going to spend more on 50-65 year old than a 20-45 year old. For that reason premiums are much higher for the older person.

But, we Baby Boomers are a smart group and where there is a will, there is a way. So let’s look at some of the options:

If you currently have a job and are looking to retire or start your own business, you have a couple of avenues you can investigate. First you can inquire if your company will let you buy health insurance through the company plan. If your company will let you do this your employer (assuming we are talking early retirement) may subsidize part of your premiums. If not, you still get group rates which are a whole lot cheaper than individual rates. If you are married and your spouse is still working strongly consider adding yourself to his/her plan if that option is available to you.

The next option (if you currently have a job which provides health insurance) is COBRA or Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. COBRA lets former employees and their dependents continue their employer’s group coverage for up to 18 months. The best thing about COBRA is it is guaranteed. Your former employer’s insurer can’t turn you down even if you have a chronic medical condition. The worst thing about COBRA is the cost. Your employer generally covers 70% or more of your health insurance premium. With COBRA you have to pay the whole premium plus administrative costs. Industry surveys indicate based on an average premium (for 2007), a former employee would have to pay more than $373 a month for individual coverage and more than $1,008 a month for family coverage.

If you are not currently employed by a company who provides health insurance there are still choices for you. If you have pre-existing conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure you can receive coverage through a state high-risk health program designed to help those with medical conditions that prevent them from getting insurance. Again though like COBRA the premiums can be quite high.

You can also check out professional organizations you could join or are already affiliated with to see if they offer health insurance policies for members. Because these are group plans, the premiums may be less than what you would pay in the individual market.

Finally, there is the individual health insurance option. There has been some progress in terms of offerings of policies for the 50-65 year age group market mainly because insurers see this age group as a potential growth market. Many Baby Boomers are in good health and have higher income than younger people. Also insurance companies hope that retirees will still purchase their products, such as supplemental insurance, even after they’re eligible for Medicare. Some of policies currently offered may have premiums as low as $200 per month for people who are in good health and willing to pay a high deductible. Many insurance advice columnists recommend combining a high deductible individual health insurance policy with a health savings account. HSA contributions are made with pretax dollars, and any money left over in the account at the end of the year is rolled over for future use. Withdrawals are not taxed if used for qualified medical expenses.

Health insurance is a highly necessary financial scheme that one should have, especially at present when the medical bills and hospital expenses are on the rise like never before. These days, even a normal hospital check up can cost you a large amount of money. There are various kinds of tests like MRI scan and CT scan that are not so inexpensive and there are modern medicines that are always high priced. In such a scenario, availing a health insurance for the whole family is a wise decision. But a study recently revealed that there are about 50 million people in United States who do not have any kind of health insurance policy for themselves or their family. The main reason for them not taking a health insurance policy is that a majority of such people consider it as a waste of money and some people think they cannot afford a health insurance policy. But it is a well-known fact that health insurance policy is more helpful for the people who belong to the low-income group.

When availing a health insurance policy one should find out which policy is the most beneficial for the family. The policy, which may appear the cheapest, may not be the most financially beneficial policy. There may be hidden charges. There are websites that provide a comparison between various health insurance schemes. Also, the cheapest policy will only cover very limited type of medical expenses that may not be useful to the policyholder. So before availing the policy, it is important to understand the trends and history of illness and hospitalization in the family. That is one should understand the types and frequency of illness and duration of hospitalization. After understanding the health trends in the family, one should select a health insurance policy accordingly.

If your family tends to have minimal hospital expenses, such as only that resulted from occasional hospital visits and an annual health check up, then you can go for a high deductible major medical policy, which is the most inexpensive. But this policy will not be beneficial if you or your family members are prone to illness frequently. Also, diseases can come at any time, which may result in unexpected hospitalization and medical expenses. So a group health insurance is a better and inexpensive health insurance option.

The health insurance policies offered by an employer to all the employees of the organization or the policies taken by an entire community, say all the residents of a particular city or all the subscribers of a particular newspaper, are examples of group insurance policy. Since a group of people are joining together, it is easy for processing the documents and collecting the bills. This reduction in administrative costs will be transferred to the customers, who in turn will get a reasonably good reduction in the policy amount.

Sound health is an indispensable feature of every individual’s life. No targets and success can be achieved if we are physically unwell. In order to safeguard this central aspect of our life, health insurance is the need of the hour.

Health insurance as we all know is the best way to secure your health against all expected and unexpected problems. Due to this almost every individual seeks to acquire a health insurance policy.

At present there are many companies offering health insurance. While going for a health insurance policy you will confront a choice between private and government insurance. Prior to opting for either policy, you should know that with a private health insurance you would have an access to luxurious private hospitals, wide range of private doctors to choose from and mostly immediate treatment. While in a government health insurance scheme the lifetime health cover penalizes people who take out health insurance later in life with higher premiums. If you take the policy after your 31st birthday you will be required to pay a 2% surcharge annually up to 70%. So for instance if you acquire the policy at the age of 50 you will have to pay 30% more than a person who joined at the age of 30.

Government health insurance policy also comes up with a Medicare levy surcharge according to which unmarried people earning more than $50k and married couples with or without children earning more than $100k will pay an extra 1% Medicare surcharge in addition to 1.5% Medicare levy most people pay. But this extra annual expenditure of $500 to $1000 can be avoided by opting for hospital insurance.

Premium plays a key role in choosing the kind of policy you want. Money can be saved on premium in various ways such as purchasing a policy with ‘excess’ or the money that an individual is required to pay for stay in a hospital before benefits are payable. You can also buy a policy that asks for a co-payment. In case of co-payment if you don’t go into hospital, the member decides to pay usually a fixed amount of money each time he avails the service. Choosing a policy that doesn’t include several treatment facilities is also an option to lower your premium rates. Besides this you can also buy a policy that only covers you as a private patient in a public hospital. However it is better and in the long run beneficial to take a policy that offers a high ‘excess’ in comparison to those that exclude several treatment conditions. Some commonly barred treatments are- cosmetic surgery, cataract surgery, rehabilitation, hip, knee and other joint replacements, obstetrics and birth related care, assisted reproduction and psychiatric care. In case you want coverage for any of these treatments, prior to purchasing make sure your policy includes it.

What factors affect the cost of your health insurance?

Age: Obviously, there is a link between your need for health services and your age. As you hit the age of fifty, typically, you start using health providers more and more. You may also notice, that health insurance premiums start taking larger jumps after the age of fifty.

Gender: Females will pay higher premiums than males. Is it because they use medical services more or is it because they need medical services more? Who knows the answer?

Current and Past Health: There is a correlation between your previous health conditions and your expectancy of future good health. Certainly, your current health issues will affect your premiums.

Where you live: Insurance rates vary depending on which state and even the county you reside in.

Type of plan: If you are going to compare insurance plans, make sure that you compare “apples with apples”. For example, compare PPO plans with PPO plans, not with HMO plans. Make sure that you are comparing “Major Medical’ plans with Major Medical plans, and not with any other type of plan.

“How much will the insurance cost?”

We will use Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina as an example: First, you obtain an online quote. This quote takes into account your age, location, and gender only. This online quote that does not take into account your current health situation. Certainly, you cannot expect that this quote will be representative of your situation unless you are of “standard health”.

Second: you can obtain a “final quote”. To do this, you will need to do an application. The quickest way to do this is online. However, if your computer skills are lacking, or your patience with computers is low, you should ask that the agent send you a paper application. (There is no application fee with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina.) With the information from this application, they will provide you with a “final quote”.

Which plan should you choose?

The most important factor to consider is the monthly cost. You must be able to pay the premium month in and month out. Don’t burden yourself with a premium that you can’t maintain. You will have a choice of about thirty plans. Buy one of the middle plans. Don’t buy the most expensive plan, unless you know that you can afford it.

Don’t make the common mistake:

Many people find that the best plans are “too expensive”. Don’t think that because you cannot afford the plan that you “want”, that you shouldn’t buy any plan. Buy the least expensive plan, if you must, but buy a plan. Let’s say that the least expensive plan has a very high deductible of $10,000. Certainly, if you had a health crisis, you wouldn’t want to have to pay ten thousand dollars.

However, if you don’t have insurance, you will have a deductible that is much greater than ten thousand dollars. If you need bypass surgery, for example , which typically costs about $130,000, your $10,000 deductible will look a lot better. Another factor that is involved here, is that many people do not realize is that if you don’t have health insurance, and you need that bypass surgery, the hospital does not have to admit you unless it is a medical emergency! Needing bypass surgery is usually not a medical emergency.

Summary:

There are many factors that affect your health insurance premiums. The most important ones are age, gender, current and past health, where you reside, and type of plan. Choose one of the middle, more affordable plans. If you must, buy the least expensive plan…you need to be covered.