303-425-4466

Health Shop, Inc.

Individual Health Insurance Colorado

303-425-4466

Health Shop, Inc.

How to Shop for Affordable Individual Health Insurance in Colorado

By Robert J.Tawney, Jr.   2007

With the rising costs of health plans these days you must be as prudent as possible when shopping around for good coverage at an affordable price. I have been in this business for over 20+ years.  I developed the first online group health insurance quoting system in Colorado.  In order for our revolutionary system to perform we take approximately 30 hours a month to upload all the rates for every insurance company that we quote every month.  We have the most complete library of forms to help administer your Colorado small group health insurance plan and the largest directory for Colorado Health Care Plan Descriptions Forms.  I say this only to let you know the time and effort it takes to give a real market analysis.  Secondly, it will make sense to use an agency such as ours as we have all the tools you’ll need to make that prudent decision we talked about earlier.  There are many sites that promise they shop the market and offer competitive and affordable rates, plans, etc, and really only do a small bit of research with a few companies.

Some Additional Advice Concerning Individual Health Care Plans

Most Americans get health care plans through their jobs or are covered because a family member has insurance at work. This is called group insurance. Group insurance is generally the least expensive kind. In many cases, the employer pays part or all of the cost.

Some employers offer only one plan. Some offer a choice of plans: a fee-for-service plan, a health maintenance organization (HMO), or a preferred provider organization (PPO), for example.

For more details about individual health insurance plans in Colorado, click here for a summary review of types of health care plans.

What happens if you or your family member leaves the job? You will lose your employer-supported group coverage. It may be possible to keep the same policy, but you will have to pay for it yourself. This will certainly cost you more than group coverage for the same, or less, protection.  You must seek out affordable health insurance on your own.

A Federal law makes it possible for most people to continue their group health coverage for a period of time. Called COBRA (for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985), the law requires that if you work for a business of 20 or more employees and leave your job or are laid off, you can continue to get health coverage for at least 18 months. You will be charged a higher premium than when you were working.

Not all employers offer affordable health plans.  You might find this to be the case with your job, especially if you work for a small business or work part-time.  If your employer does not offer affordable health insurance, you might be able to get group insurance through membership in a labor union, professional association, club, or other organization. Many organizations offer affordable health insurance plans to members.  Also, check out local credit unions and chamber of commerce groups for affordable health insurance coverage.

.If your employer does not offer group insurance, or if the plan offered is very limited, you can buy an individual policy. You can get fee-for-service, HMO, or PPO protection. But you should compare your options and shop carefully because coverage and costs vary from company to company. Individual plans may not offer benefits as broad as those in group plans.

If you get a non-cancelable policy (also called a guaranteed renewable policy), then you will receive individual insurance under that policy as long as you keep paying the monthly premium. The insurance company can raise the cost, but cannot cancel your coverage. Many companies now offer a conditionally renewable policy. This means that the company can cancel all policies like yours, not just yours. This protects you from being singled out, but it doesn’t protect you from losing coverage.

Before you buy any affordable policy, make sure you know what it will pay for, and what it won’t. To find out about individual plans, you can call insurance companies, HMOs, and PPOs in your community, or speak to the agent who handles your car or house insurance.  Also, utilize the databases that are accessible from this site to locate affordable health insurance companies. You can obtain mulitple individual health insurance quotes for Colorado for free.

Click on the Health Shop, Inc. logo for access to the most comprehensive insurance databases and quoting systems in Colorado.

303-425-4466

Copyright 2007 Health Shop, Inc*All Rights Reserved*Web Development by Geek Squad Girl