There are many types of individual plans available for a variety of different purposes. If you are self-employed, between jobs, recently graduated, or your COBRA benefits have ran out you might want to check into an individual program. Below you will find VERY BRIEF descriptions of some different types of programs. You will also find links to some of the individual companies that we represent. Call our office
at (314)
438-0222 or contact us for help with your particular situation. We have many carriers that we deal with and all information is treated as confidential.
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Individual Health Insurance - An individual health insurance plan is
usually fully underwritten. This means
that you must complete a health history questionnaire. INDIVIDUAL PLANS ARE NOT GUARANTEE
ISSUE. NEVER CANCEL YOUR CURRENT PLAN
UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED IN WRITING THAT A NEW PLAN IS APPROVED AND YOU HAVE
REVIEWED THE POLICY. If you have recently graduated or are in-between jobs
an individual program may be a better option for you than COBRA if you have no
health conditions. |
From American Medical Security
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Guaranteed Health Insurance - Guaranteed health coverage is available if
you have used up your State Continuation, COBRA, or you’re your employer has
terminated the group insurance program. If
you have lost coverage under a group insurance program and are unable to obtain
individual health insurance you can get a guaranteed health insurance plan under
the HIPAA laws. (HIPAA = Health
Insurance Portability And Accountability Act)
The benefits for this type of plan may not be the same as the plan you
initially wanted and the premiums are quite a bit higher. The reason for this is because the insurance
carrier knows that they will be taking on an insured that is likely to have
large claims in the future. The rates are set every year by the claims
experienced by the insured pool. |
The Ican Benefit National Choice membership is guaranteed issue, so everyone is accepted regardless of their health This is a membership plan with some insured benefits. It is not the same as HIPAA plans.
This plan is HIPAA Compliant
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Temporary Health Insurance – These
programs are generally issued for a maximum period of six months. The premiums are lower than traditional
individual health insurance because the carrier will not pay for anything that
is related to a condition you had prior to your effective date. In addition at the end of your elected time
frame your coverage ends unless you are confined in a hospital on the end
date. In the event you are hospitalized
on the ending date of your temporary coverage the carrier will continue to
insure you until you are discharged. The
moment you are discharged your coverage will end. Some temporary insurance programs will let
you apply for a second policy after the first one has ended but the same
pre-existing conditions apply. For
instance, if you had a short-term policy for six months and two weeks before
your policy ended you broke your arm.
Your policy would pay the benefits you elected. Then after your policy ended you purchased
another short-term policy and three to six weeks later you went to the doctor to
have your cast removed. The charges for
your cast removal would not be covered because they would be related to an
accident/illness you had prior to the effective date of the new policy.
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Student Select
Short-Term Medical
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Health Discount & Reimbursement Plans –
These should not be confused with health insurance plans. They generally will help get your bills
discounted or will reimburse you a set amount for a service you have
received. They generally do not pay your
provider directly. With the
reimbursement plans when you obtain services you show your identification card
the carrier provided you with and the provider will discount the amount they
bill you. With a reimbursement plan
usually you must pay for your services and then send your itemized receipt in to
the carrier to obtain your benefit.
There are some reimbursement plans that do cover a percentage of some
bills but they have a limited benefit, such as $10,000 a year.
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Individual Dental Plans – There are two
types of individual dental programs available, #1) you must select your dentist
at enrollment or #2) any dentist is covered.
These can be a great addition to your individual benefit program or if
you employer does not offer dental insurance.
The premium for a plan where you must select your dentist at enrollment
is substantially lower than the plans where you can see any dentist; although
the premiums for both programs are reasonable. Usually when you must select your dentist at
enrollment there are no waiting periods for any type of care. The downside of these programs is the
selection of dentists is small but if your dentist is on their list then it is
an upside. When you have a dentist that
you like and want to continue using, a plan that covers any dentist would be the
one for you. The downside of these plans
is you will have waiting periods for different levels of care.
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The Competitor Smile Dental - (Security Life Insurance Company of America) Dental Insurance for Individuals and Families.
Dental Source
Dental Health Care Plan
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RX, Dental, & Vision Discount Plans – These
plans are just what they say. They are
discount plans not insurance plans. The
premium for these plans is low because the carrier does not process any
claims. They provide you with an
identification card and if you use a provider that they have negotiated a
discount with, then that discount for service is passed on to you at the time of
service. RX discount plans may be a good addition to a plan that does not cover
prescriptions.
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Adoptions – If you are adopting a child from another
country you will want to review your current insurance program very
thoroughly. Some health insurance plans
may not cover you when you travel outside the United States and if they don’t
you might want to look at a travel insurance program. Another issue to check is when your
current policy will start covering your new child. Sometimes the adoption is not final when you
start traveling back to the United States with your new child so you might want
to check on a travel plan for the child.
The travel plans work pretty much the same way as temporary insurance plans with a few additional benefits,
such as repatriation.
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Overseas Travel Medical - (American Consumer Insurance Trust) Travel Plan which provides comprehensive short term medical protection for individuals traveling outside of their home country.
International Medical Group offers travel insurance, trip insurance, and international medical. For Spanish version click here
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Travel Insurance - There are many different types of travel
insurance available. In today's world this is a very valuable
plan. When you travel outside of your home country please
don't forget to check your medical insurance plan to see if you
will have coverage outside of your country. It can put a damper
on your vacation if you have an accident or illness and then find
out your regular insurance won't cover you. With international
medical insurance you can give yourself some peace of mind. But
be sure to understand what your policy covers. You want to
make sure that it covers doctor visits, hospitalization, prescriptions,
lab work, x-rays, and repatriation.
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Legal Plans – There are a few different programs
available for this valuable coverage. Some programs are
prepaid legal plans and some are discount plans. Some plans
cover you nationally and others are regional. Make sure you will have
access to attorneys when you need it. You will want to have a company that has attorneys
in every field because you don't want to talk to an attorney that
specializes in estate matters if you have a question about traffic
violations. Be sure to read your contract so that you know
your benefits. Most of these plans are available
for individuals, families, self-employed person, home based businesses,
employers, and as voluntary benefits thru employers. Pre-Paid
Legal Plans do for legal issues what medical insurance does for
medical issues. In some states these programs are considered
insurance and other states they are memberships.
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Legal Plans can cost less than a cup of coffee a day!
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Identity Theft vs. Credit Card Identity Protection – A
lot of credit card companies offer a type of Identity Protection.
Identity
theft is much more than someone stealing your credit card and making
charges on it. When someone steals your identity they can
buy things like houses and cars in other states, they can take a
loan against your current residence, they can even get a drivers
license in your name. Sometimes someone who has stolen your
identity may even be charged with a crime and they are using your
name! If that happens and you get pulled over in your car
you could even go to jail while trying to prove that what you are
being charged with really had nothing to do with you. When
you purchase coverage for Identity Theft you need to check and make
sure that the company monitors your credit reports every day and
notifies you if there are any changes. It is important that
they do more than monitor it. You also want to make
sure that it covers more than just your credit card. This
is one of the most talked-about and fastest growing white-collar crimes in history,
identity theft is a problem you can't afford to ignore.
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Send me information on Identity Theft protection
What REALLY is Identity Theft according to the FTC?
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RX (Prescription) Plans – There are some insurance
programs available that offer insurance coverage for prescriptions.
One of the things to check for is the list of drugs and what
tier of coverage they will fall under. Most of these plans
do a review of the drugs and their cost twice a year. When
the review is completed sometimes a few of the drugs will be changed
from one tier of coverage to another tier of coverage, new drugs
can be added, or some drugs can be removed. It all boils down
to cost and the negotiated price the insurance company can get from
the pharmacies.
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RX Co-Pay Plan
The Competitor RX Copay Card (Rx Options, Inc.) Prescription Drugs: $10 Generic Co-Pay and $20 Preferred Brand Name Co-Pay
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Specified Benefit Plans - Specified benefit plans can
be found all over the place. I have talked with some people
who actually think they have regular health insurance when they
took one of these plans out. BE SURE TO READ YOUR CONTRACT.
These plans are designed to cover specific injuries, illnesses,
and situations. If you have an accident policy they will pay
you a specified amount for accidents only. These are
a GREAT ADDITION to your coverage but should not be relied on to
cover all of your situations.
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United American Specified Benefit Plans
HealthCare Assurance
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Life Insurance - When you are looking for life insurance there are many things to consider. First of all, how much
life insurance do you need? Then how long do you need that
life insurance? After you have decided the answer to the above two questions
then you will know if you need temporary insurance which is called
TERM INSURANCE or PERMANENT INSURANCE. If you need term insurance
then you will need to decide how long you need it for. Term
insurance premiums will increase either annually or on a pre-determined
amount of time such as every 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 years. When
you have a pre-determined time you can budget for the plan easier.
Term insurance programs do not accumulate any values so if
you miss a premium payment your coverage will cease. Term
insurance is a good way to add additional coverage at a low cost
while you have children at home, a mortgage, or to cover a business
loan. Permanent insurance will cost you more but you
will have the advantage of accumulating cash values that you may
be able to use for short term loans at a lower interest rate. There
are several types of policies that can be used as permanent insurance:
whole life, universal life, and variable life. Check
with your agent to determine what would be best for your particular
situation. An added advantage with permanent insurance is
that you may only have to pay premiums for a period of time and
then have coverage until age 95 or 100. Another type of insurance
is ACCIDENTAL DEATH insurance. Most of the time this is marketed
thru the mail and the cost for this coverage at first glance seems
reasonable but then when you consider that less than 5% of the population
dies in an accident and they only pay off if you have an accident
you might be better off getting a regular term policy that
will pay off no matter how you die.
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Request a life insurance quote
When requesting a life insurance quote you will be on a secure page.
Don't think you can get life insurance?
Check the Guaranteed Issue Plan
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Mortgage Insurance - When you have a mortgage you are
generally offered insurance that will pay off your mortgage in the
event of your death. I think this is a good concept except
for one thing. Every month the premium is added to your mortgage
payment and the actual benefit goes down. If you had a separate
term insurance policy you could have the same premium every month
along with the same benefit. Generally the cost for an individual
term policy is lower than the mortgage insurance. Please check
with your life insurance agent to save yourself some money.
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Request a term insurance quote
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Cell Phone Insurance - This is an amazing product to me.
For a monthly fee of about $3.00 - $12.00 if you lose your
phone you can get a replacement, usually within 3 days. If
you don't lose your phone you will end up paying more in premiums
than the phone is actually worth in a few months, especially since
the price of cell phones is going down all the time.
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Ratings - Many providers ask independent
companies to rate them and they use that information in their advertising.
Please note that not all companies as for this so not all
companies will be listed. You can check what the ratings
of insurance an insurance company mean at one of the following:
AM Best Weiss
Moody's
Learn what an attorney rating
means at Martindale-Hubbell
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Have Questions?
Call us.
PH: 314-438-0222
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Agent Only Information - Would you like to offer some
of these programs to your clients? Contact us by phone
or email and we would be happy to help you with this. If sending
us an email be sure to include your name and phone number where
you can be reached during normal business hours.
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Perform an online transaction for an International Medical Insurance Plan
Provide Pre-Paid Legal Plans or Identity Theft Shield to your clients.
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