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.

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