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 How
to reduce your Health Insurance costs
Recently
I had a client with a group health plan through his employer who’s
payroll deduction was about to double for the coverage on his family. I
explained to him how often times a group plan does not give you the best
value or price for your dependants. Group plans assume a percentage of
the employees and their families are healthy and a percentage will have
pre-existing medical conditions that may require the insurance company
to pay a higher amount of claims. In order to compensate for this, the
cost is averaged out and an employee who is paying for all or part of
the cost for a reasonably healthy family may be paying a higher amount
then he would pay if they were on their own individual plan. In his
case it was $44 a month for him and about $580 for his family.
I
suggested that he keep the cafeteria plan for himself since his employer
was paying for a good part of the premium. Then we moved his wife and
(2) children to their own individual plan, better suited to their needs
with more value at a savings of about $150 a month. Another client who
recently had a baby was being offered a plan with maternity benefits
although she had no plans to become pregnant anytime soon. We were able
to design a plan with more benefits that the family could use now. We
recommended a maternity program with a one time fee of about $800 after
she is pregnant, that would cover all costs and cover the newborn for a
year after the delivery. This saved her about $200 in monthly premium.
Many
times families or individuals are paying higher premiums for health
insurance because there plans just do not fit their needs. Another
recent client told me his rates had increased (3) times in the past two
years and his family rarely went to the doctor. He didn’t realize about
$120 a month of his premium was to have an office co-pay of $35 in his
plan. By removing the office visits and paying out of pocket at the
network rate for an annual physical for him and his wife (Pap &
Mammogram), and maybe a couple of sick visits, he will be able to save
about $700 a year. By working with an experienced health insurance agent
and understanding how your insurance works and designing a plan that is
best suited for your needs you can usually save money and often add more
value to your plan.
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