dean

Martha is in the process of incorporating as a subsidary of her parent company, or something like that - it's all Greek to me. So, we are now in the position of having to purchase our own health and life insurance, although the parent company will be picking up the tab for it all. We've had numerous insurance agents send us literature and details on their various policies, but weeding through all the legalese, fine print, and insurance mumbo jumbo is proving to be frustrating at best. We would like to get this done as quickly and painlessly as possible. Can any of you folks steer me toward some good health insurance companies or policies that deal with very small companies/individuals with which you have experience?

Morris

Whatever company you decide to go with, consider a high deductible plan combined with a Health Savings Account (HSA). It will save money on premiums, but only do this if you and Martha are healthy and able to cover the first 10,000 of bills if you get sick.
You can google HSAs to read all about them.

DrCloud

I don't know the field (business area) or anything, but sometimes professional associations have insurance connections in this regard.

Another way to do would be to try one of the bigs. I have Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Florida through FAU, and they may (or may not) have something you could tap into.

(BCBS/FL did quite well by us on our recent trip out west. As a big, the card was accepted instantly by a hospital emergency room when we needed it. We haven't seen bills yet, of course, but just getting in the door was something of a victory, which might not have happened with Bob's Best Insurance.) HPH

dean

Thanks Dean. The HSA thing is one of the plans that we've been trying to sort through all morning. We're both very healthy, except for the high cholesterol thing, but I don't know that we want to risk having the high deductible. Since Martha's company is picking up the tab (I think they've allocated something in the neighborhood of $1500/month for the health insurance alone), the premiums aren't a high priority. However, if I understand what I've been reading, I do like the idea of getting the money back as an IRA if we remain healthy. I'll try to pick through the stuff a bit more today.

Rdrunner

Have to agree with this, especially with all the traveling that Martha does. You want something that's going to be accepted everywhere. Stick with the bigs. BCBS has always worked for me.


dvh

dean

Up until I retired, I had BCBS as well and I liked it even though I never got to use it for much of anything. As I recall, BCBS offered me the option of picking up an individual policy when I left my job. I guess I should've taken them up on it. I'll visit their website and try to get an idea of what they offer.
We now have Aetna through Martha's company, which doesn't seem to be very popular in these parts. We had a devil of a time finding a doctor who takes Aetna when Martha made me go for a physical.

Lainey

We've been on various insurances over the years. The companies Rick and I work for our small and our choices have been limited.

I now have a BCBS plan, and I can tell you that their customer service gets a big from me vs. others such as United Health Care.

I'm not sure how much you and Martha have to kick in to this insurance, but check and see if you can buy two singles vs a family plan. It's less expensive that way. Rick and I are each on our own policies at our respective places of employment. Otherwise our "share" of the premium would be about equal to a low mortgage payment!

dean

We're not planning on kicking in anything, since we don't contribute anything to our current policy. All of this maneuvering was her company's idea for book-keeping purposes, so they're going to foot the bill. If $1500 won't cover it, then they'll have to up the ante which they said they would do.
I have no idea what's going on with the company or why they're doing all of this since it's going to cost them quite a bit more money in the end. Martha has tried to explain it to me several times with the same result each time. Mercifully, I lapse into a coma every time she raises the subject.

That's strange to me that two individual plans would be less expensive than a family plan for two people. I wonder what the rationale is.

Lainey

Many small companies don't have the option of offering a "family plan" for a couple without children, or for a single parent with one child. It's either a single plan or a family plan regardless of how many are in the family. Anyway you look at it, it's expensive.

DrCloud

^^ Yep, premiums are usually either you alone or a family with eight sick kids and a dog with really bad gas, no childless couples. We're hit this way with both health and dental coverage, except for with the dental coverage calculation the dog also has bad teeth, apparently. I don't quite understand why companies don't just scale the coverage to who's actually covered. That would seem both easy and profitable. HPH