Family health insurance ... How to save money as a company employee

In today's economic climate, many companies are discontinuing the company paid coverage for family members. In fact, in some cases, they never paid for family members and it was always "contributory" or share costs.

The costs for the family member are higher than comparable individual costs if the member had their own insurance and this is explained in a minute.

In over 75% of the people we talk to, we can reduce those costs that the employee is paying. Often substantially.. $100 or more per month.

Unless your "company deal" is an "all or nothing" which means you have to  take both employee coverage (paid for by company) AND family coverage (you pay for), then separating the two will more often than not make these savings happen.. if you are working with an agent and company that knows how.

Here's why and how: When an employer chooses to offer group insurance, the employer and group provider are obligated by law to offer insurance to all qualifying group members. They are obiligated to offer this without distinction or prejudice or medical qualification.

There could be "indirect medical qualification" like this: The medical qualification could come about indirectly through having to meet certain (healthy) standards to become employed, but beyond that, there's no physcial qualifications for insurance.

As a result, the group could include any number of "at risk" individuals. This could include those with heart stents or past history; elevated cholsterol or blood pressure; those with weight problems, etc. Certainly smokers are covered.. but if you are in the private market, there's often as much as a 25% rate difference between smokers and non smokers!

The insurance company is NOT going to lose money, so they charge premeiums that allows them to cover higher risk groups or individuals in that they can not underwrite individuals.

If now the company quits paying for the family members, but offers insurance as part of the group policy, providing the employee is willing to pay for it, this is much more expensive (at least for a relatively healthy individual) than the same individual obtaining medical insurance through a good company on their own!

In many cases, people don't think about this. What they normally assume is "I'm part of a large group; I'm getting a group or volume discount". Sorry, it doesn't work that way! The individual premeium is most generally higher. This is also why COBRA costs are higher.

How Do We Save You Money?

Very simply.. we work with you to provide you with an individual policy. Now until we talk with you and learn about your health conditions can we make any claims of savings. But we can work with you to see what possibilties are, and if they are substantial, work with you to have private coverage.

If you are an employer...

First, I do NOT want to mess with your arrangements with your group coverage. That's a specialty just as Individual Medical Insurance is a specialty. But you know if you can show an employee a way to put an effective extra $100+ a month in his disposable income, you have just done a ton of work toward increased morale. I'll be happy to provide a mini "generic" seminar at lunch or meeting time, at your office, to explain these coverages, then to set individual appointments, working hours or after hours, for those who might like to obtain quotes. This is all with no obligation to you.

And if your company is small.. say 5-7 employees, you may want to compare the costs of individual underwritten policies with one common bill to you to the group plan you have now. You will probably be pleased with what you learn.

You may use the contact me forms elsewhere on this site if you wish.

 PS.. Please feel free to use the link in the index to get yourself a free, no obligation Prescription (and diagnositcs and vision) discount card, and also to print out as many of these as you want.. family members, employees, etc. Totally free, no obligation.. My thanks to you for your time here.