Friday, December 12, 2008

How To Compare Group Health Insurance Quotes

Choosing group health insurance plan for your business is a critical priority and never an easy task. So how do you simplify the process of comparing group health insurance quotes and make sure that your employees get the best health insurance benefits at the lowest possible cost?

If you already have a group plan in place for your business, then you know that getting group health insurance quotes isn’t a quick and easy process. Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as getting online, plugging in your zip code, email and phone number into some health insurance web site and getting instant insurance quotes.

Instead, you need to work with a reputable independent health insurance broker who can guide and advise you as you determine the best group health plan design for your business. A broker has access to multiple insurance carriers and knows the ins and outs of comparing group health insurance quotes. He or she helps with comparing your group health insurance quotes based on both benefits and cost and can help you decipher the various nuances of putting together an employee benefits package that is an ideal fit for your company’s needs.

Group Health Insurance Quotes


Your insurance broker will need to conduct a simple census of your group. This entails collecting general demographic and health history information on all of your full time employees who are currently eligible for participating in your group health insurance plan. Basically, to get the most accurate group health insurance quotes, the information required per employee is name, age, gender, job title, employment start date, how many additional family members will be added per employee, smoker status, and diagnosed health conditions. The required information may vary by carrier and by state. In addition, you’ll need to consider whether optional maternity coverage, dental coverage, and vision coverage will be made available to employees. Finally, you’ll need to think about how many group health insurance options you want to make available to employees (HMO, PPO, HSA, HRA, FSA, POS, or any combination of the aforementioned).

You can wait until you receive your group health insurance quotes from your broker before making a decision on plan design. If you already have group health insurance in place for your company and you are simply shopping quotes to see if there is something more affordable for your business, it’s highly likely that you won’t get an exact replica of your current plan (with all current options, deductible and coinsurance levels, etc.) for a cheaper rate. You can find group health insurance plans at lower rates but you’ll probably have to accept a slightly different (or less) options, higher out of pocket costs for your employees, or altogether offering the same group health insurance plan with increased employee contribution to the insurance premium.

Ultimately, the more informed you are regarding the various components of group health plans, the simpler it will be to work with your broker in comparing group health insurance quotes and ensuring that you get the best group benefits at the lowest rates.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Best Health Insurance Quotes Online

People ask me every day how they can get the best health insurance quotes online. The simple answer is you need to know what to look for because not all health insurance quotes online are the same. You want a smart balance of coverage and premium. Here’s a list of things you should look for.
Ultimately, if you’re shopping health insurance quotes online, then you’re most likely looking for the best deal. So what’s a good deal? That’s what you need to know before you run off searching for health insurance quotes online. You need to define what comprises a smart balance between coverage and insurance premium.

Health Insurance Quotes Online



Start with what you already know. Do you currently have health insurance? If so, then you probably have a good idea of whether it works well for your family’s needs. This is very useful information to have while shopping health insurance quotes online. For example, say you’re used to paying a $30 copay for every routine doctor visit, $15 for generic prescriptions, and $50 for brand name prescriptions. Doctor visits and prescriptions are the most commonly looked at benefits of a health insurance plan. The next question, before looking at any health insurance quotes online, is how often do you actually use these benefits?

If you have a fairly health family that doesn’t go to the doctor’s often and doesn’t get sick frequently enough where you’re filling hundreds of dollars worth of prescription drugs, then these benefits fall low on your needs list. This is important because now you can seek out health insurance quotes online for health insurance plans that will save you money in this area.

Another thing to consider before looking at any health insurance quotes online is the appropriate level of deductible and coinsurance to get. Most health insurance quotes online only show you deductible level. Again, compare to your current health insurance coverage and think about how often you actually reached your deductible and coinsurance maximums (together these equal your annual out of pocket maximum). Estimate all of your healthcare expenses per year on average. Then figure out how much more in medical expenses you can handle out of your own pocket without incurring financial hardship. Now you know what deductible and coinsurance level you need as you search health insurance quotes online.

So make sure you’re equipped with the fundamentals of how health insurance works, what your health insurance needs are, and seek out those health insurance quotes online that will provide you with the coverage you need at the lowest available rates.

5 Best Places To Get Health Insurance Quotes

If you’re searching for health insurance quotes then your best bet is to make sure you do your homework and find multiple health insurance quotes from several sources. It’s important not to simply buy the first health insurance plan you come across just because it looks or sounds good and just happens to be in your price range.

Here are the five best sources for health insurance quotes



(1) Health Insurance Quotes Online

This is by far the most popular and most efficient way to get health insurance quotes. Simply use your favorite search engine and type health insurance quotes into the search box. On the results page, make sure you filter through the paid advertisements and look for a web site listed in the natural search results offering a variety of health insurance quotes from multiple carriers.

(2) Captive Health Insurance Agent

Adds a personal touch to shopping health insurance quotes but not usually a good choice because of the limited number of products available from this type of insurance agent. “Captive” means this agent is only allowed to sell health insurance plans from one company. Therefore, you shouldn’t expect to get multiple health insurance quotes.

(3) Independent Insurance Agent

It’s much better to get health insurance quotes from a true independent health insurance agent. Make sure your agent really has access to multiple insurance carriers and that she is able to give you health insurance quotes from multiple carriers. This type of agent typically is a sole proprietor and is usually a one-person shop. Independent agents are a dime a dozen and may or not be around after you’ve bought your health insurance policy.

(4) Reputable Health Insurance Broker

It’s even better to get health insurance quotes from an established health insurance broker than a one-person shop. A broker gives you health insurance quotes from multiple carriers but the upside is that a broker is usually a larger agency with support staff and a brick and mortar office. You’ll have a better chance of getting consistent customer support for the long haul.

(5) Health Insurance Carrier Direct

You can always go directly to each individual health insurance carrier and get health insurance quotes straight from the source. The rates will be the same as you’d get from any agent or web site so don’t expect any savings. Also, you won’t get the same level of customer support as you would from an agent.

Know what to expect from each source of health insurance quotes and you’ll have a much more pleasant shopping experience.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Get Health Insurance Quotes Online

So you’re looking for health insurance quotes, eh? My guess is you’re probably paying too much for your current individual health insurance plan or you just changed jobs, got laid off, or started your own business and now you’re looking for an affordable medical plan. So how do you find health insurance quotes online to get an affordable health insurance plan for the lowest rate available in your state? Here’s how…

How To Simplify Your Search For Health Insurance Quotes Online


So you’re looking for health insurance quotes, eh? My guess is you’re probably paying too much for your current individual health insurance plan or you just changed jobs, got laid off, or started your own business and now you’re looking for an affordable medical plan. So how do you find health insurance quotes online to get an affordable health insurance plan for the lowest rate available in your state? Here’s how…

Searching for quotes is a very simple process, as long as you know what to look for and what to expect. Finding a web site to offer you quotes is simple – use your favorite search engine and type in health insurance quotes online and this will give you plenty of choices.

You should first understand a few basic things about how the health insurance quoting process works. When you find a web site that offers you free health quotes, you ought to be aware that they are providing you with quotes from several health insurance carriers, but not necessarily from all of them. In all likelihood, the web site offering you health insurance quotes is a general agency that sells several different health insurance products from several insurance carriers. This is good for you because the more insurance carriers the agency is appointed with, the more options you have to choose from. It is highly unlikely that you will find an agency that is appointed with all carriers, so just feel confident that as long as they are not only offering one or two company’s products, you are in good hands.

Health Insurance Quotes – What You Need To Get Them


So you find a web site that provides health insurance quotes. Now what? Well, at the very least, you’re going to need to input your zip code, date of birth of every person in your family, height and weight for everyone, indicate whether anyone is a smoker, whether anyone has any health conditions, email address and phone number. Some web sites will ask for more information to give you access to your health insurance quotes, but at the bare minimum, you’ll need the information above.

Does the insurance agency need your email and phone number to provide you with a variety of health insurance quotes? Nope. But they’ll ask you for email and phone (heck, they’ll most likely require it before you can see your quotes) because they need a way to contact you. That’s right. They way the insurance agency sees it, you are seeking health insurance quotes because you must be getting ready to buy a policy. And since you are a highly qualified potential customer, they want your business. So as soon as you submit your information, expect to receive several phone calls and emails from multiple insurance agents.

I hope this was somewhat informative. If you need more help with finding health insurance quotes online, submit a comment to this blog.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Health Insurance Quotes | Find Affordable Health Insurance

Welcome to Health Insurance Quotes. This site provides education and tips for health insurance shoppers in order to find the right affordable health insurance plan. If you have questions not covered in Health Insurance Quotes, feel free to sign up on this blog to receive updates.