Rachelle asked:


Im 18 and pregnant. I was on kid care chip insurance it ran out now i need another insurance company that is good and covers a lot with pregnancy. With kid care i only had a 5 dollar co-pay i need something like that any ideas?

When a loved dies, especially in a tragic accident, you do not expect the pain of your loss to be made worse by your insurance company.

This is what happened to David Webb, who was left to raise his two year old daughter on his own, after his wife was killed when a suicidal motorist deliberately drove his car into theirs.

Mr and Mrs Webb, from Letchworth, Hertfordshire, and their daughter Samantha had been driving on the A1 in December 2004 when their car was rammed by 19-year-old Charles Brown.

Driving the wrong way at 90mph, he was trying to kill himself after being dumped by his girlfriend.

Brown, of Langford, Bedfordshire, was only injured in the crash and was later given a ten-year jail sentence after admitting manslaughter.

The devastated electrician knew his 29-year-old wife Sarah could never be replaced, but he hoped that claiming on their dual life insurance policy would at least help him to meet the costs of suddenly becoming a lone parent.

But Mr Webb was left shattered when Legal & General refused the claim. This was due to a dispute over whether or not charity worker MrsWebb had been a smoker.

The insurance company said that when she filled out the insurance form she had indicated that she was not a smoker. However, a contradictory entry on her medical records was found.

When the form was filled out in 2001 Mrs Webb had given up smoking as they were planning to start a family.

Even though, whether or not she had been a smoker had absolutely nothing to do with her death, Legal and General said it was not obliged to pay out as they claim important information had been withheld.

Mr Webb was then thrown into a legal battle which lasted two and a half .This has been resolved with him receiving 100,000 pounds in an out-of-court settlement.

He said: “I was distraught when my wife was killed, especially given the sudden and horrific circumstances. The last thing I needed was to have to fight my insurance company. They should be ashamed.”

It was soon after his wife’s tragic death that Mr Webb phoned his insurer about the life insurance policy, which would pay out 200,000 pounds for each partner.

A clause in the application had asked: “Have you used any tobacco products in the last 12 months?”

But when filling out the form in 2001, a pregnant Mrs Webb, who had given up smoking, said no. Her husband, who is a smoker, said yes.

When however the insurers examined her medical records they found a form that had been completed from her maternity papers, that had the “smoker” box ticked.

They took this to mean information had been with held by her, even though her family insisted that she gave up smoking when she started to try for a family.

Mr Webb said: “I never dreamed that Legal & General would search through Sarah’s medical records and seek to avoid payment in this way. It’s totally unbelievable.”

Legal & General said: “After careful consideration we took the commercial decision, on a non-liability basis, to accept the offer of settlement from the solicitors acting on behalf of MrsWebb’s estate.”



By: Sheila Challiner

Is there such thing as cheap health insurance available to families and individuals? With health insurance costs are rising to the all time high and the pressure from the media. Insurance companies are scrambling for ways to make health insurance affordable for everyone. With so much media attention and the uncertainty for the future of the health insurance industry and with talk about socialized health insurance. Insurance companies are stepping up to offer more “cheaper” health insurance options for the consumers.

If you live in California there are numerous options that are available to you that will definitely help out your pocket book. Two of the largest health insurance providers in the state, Blue Cross and Blue Shield have been recently introducing new significantly cheaper health insurance plans. One thing we have to understand is that insurance companies want your business and they are finally listening to consumers. Insurance companies understand that they have to be competitive or they are just going to go out of business.

Lets get in to your options and what is available to you in the state of California. One thing you have to understand is that every state is different in the types of health plans that are offered. Even if the insurance company is the same the health plans will still vary based on your state laws. California Blue Cross and Blue Shield has been listening and have come out with some great plans that are “cheap” compared to what was available before.

When you are looking at Blue Cross consider new SmartSense plans that are extremely competitive. SmartSense plans offer you all the features of a rich health insurance plans with some limitations on the prescriptions drug coverage and no maternity. If you have no need for brand name drug coverage and not need for maternity, you will be surprised by how low your monthly premiums are going to be. SmartSense Plans are most popular plans that Blue Cross is currently offering. If you are looking for health plans that cover maternity and still offer low monthly premium then take a look at new Lumenos plans that Blue Cross offers. Not all Lumenos plans offer maternity coverage so make sure you check that the plan you are looking at offers maternity coverage.

With Blue Shield you also have some new great plan options with their new Balance Plans and Essential Plans. Balance Plans are great plans for the families who are looking for very affordable monthly premiums and a benefit rich plan. The way Blue Shield is able to offer low monthly premiums is by excluding maternity coverage. The other options you have, especially if you are single individual, is Blue Shield Essential Plans. Essential plans offer all the benefits of benefit rich plan with the exceptions of no maternity coverage and no brand name drug coverage. Essential plans also have much lower maximum out of pocket costs. If you are healthy and are looking for “cheap” benefit rich plan, Essential Plans are definitely right for you.

One thing that we have to understand is that insurance companies are consistently competing for your business. If you stay proactive and shop for health insurance options you are always going to find “cheap” health insurance plans for your self or your family. Feel free to visit out site (see below) to get instant health insurance quotes on the plans mentions in this article and many other “cheap” health insurance plans.



By: Dennis Alexander

Whether you already know it or not California has a lot of options for health insurance. There are companies that we all heard of and there are some companies that we never heard of. With all the Health Insurance Companies out there you might be wondering what the differences are and which one is right for you.

First in state of California the health insurance companies you should be looking at are; Aetna, Assurant, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, HealthNet, Kaiser, Nationwide, PacifiCare, Celtic and new company that is going to be available in state of California is Golden Rule. These are the largest carriers that are available in the State of California. If you are looking at any other company that was not mentioned previously, use caution. With all the health insurance premiums going up there are companies that prey on people with low premiums and coverage that does not cover anything. They are just out there to make a quick buck buy collection as much premiums as they can before you cancel your coverage. Stay away from companies that you never heard of, not matter what they tell you. If you hear something like, “affordable health insurance for self-employed”, run.

Second what you have to understand that the actual cost of insurance no matter what company you go with is about the same. So how do insurance companies have so many different plans with different premiums? If it is a large insurance company and the company ran efficiently that is how you get great premium with great coverage. What creates variety of prices for coverage is the creative aspect of the insurance company designing their plans. The way they do it is by deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, drug coverage deductibles, whether the plan covers brand name drugs or generic drugs only, maternity coverage, maximum out of pocket, deductible and co-pays for all kind of different services.

The name we all know is Blue Cross Blue Shield. Blue Cross has been around since the recession of 1929, and it used to cost only 1 cent a day. The times have changes since then, but the Blue Cross name is still around. Blue Cross has been over the years the most stable largest health insurance provider in the United States. Their strategy is to keep rates stable and have stable rate increases. While most other plans might lower their rates to get more people on their coverage and then keep increasing their rates. There fore as some plans might be more attractive in premiums at the moment over time eventually they have to catch up with the actual market health insurance cost. Sometime the company has to charge people more for health insurance in the future so they can give more affordable rates today. Blue Cross will give the one of the largest varieties of plans to choose from and you can always downgrade a plan without going through underwriting is the monthly premiums because to expensive.

The most competitive health insurance coverage you will be able to get in California today is through Aetna and once Golden Rule plans come out by United Health Care then Golden Rule plans are going to be the most completive plan. Every time most of the large insurance companies enter a new state with a new plan they make that plan more competitive just to capture the percentage of that market eventually the company will have to raise their rates to the market level. Aetna plans in California are the most competitive. This is where you can get the most coverage for your money. Keep in mind that the Aetna Individual plans in the state of California do not cover Maternity.

Assurant Health Plans is provided through Fortis Insurance Company witch is the 26th largest company in the world and Fortis Insurance Company has been around since 1892. Assurant Health Plans are the most widely accepted and flexible plans that are available on the market today. Assurant Health Plans utilizes dozens of provider networks Nationwide to give you the worlds largest selections of doctors in United States and worldwide. Assurant Health Plans are the only plans that will cover you world wide as they will cover you in the United States. There is a big difference when insurance company says that you are covered for emergencies worldwide. Insurance company can make a final decision on whether that was true emergency or not. Assurant Health Plans have no such restrictions. Assurant is the only company that will allow you to move to different state without going through underwriting process all over again. That meant that with most companies even if it is a same company if you move from one state to another you have to cancel you policy in the current state and re-apply in the state that you are moving to. The down side with Assurant in some states is that they are not the most competitive and harder to get approved for. If you considering HSA plan, Assurant Health is the best options available to individuals and families.

Blue Shield of California is great coverage especially if it is young family looking for a plan with maternity coverage and for a family where one of the adults on the plans is significantly younger than the other. Blue Shield bases their monthly premiums on the youngest primary policy holder. This can be any adult in the family. Blue Shield plans have low maximum out of pocket and wide acceptance with doctors. A lot of doctors in state of California prefer Blue Shield plans because Blue Shield reimburses them faster than most other insurance companies. Keep in mind that in some states Blue Cross and Blue Shield are the same company in state of California they are two different insurance companies competing for your business.

HealthNet of California is the insurance company available in western states. HealthNet family plans are affordable, have some of the lowest maximum out of pocket and designed for healthy individuals and families. The new line of plans form HealthNet are their popular no deductible PPO plans. Which are some of the worst plans for families. No deductible plans are not designed for families since they have extremely high maximum out of pocket witch might be a great fit for single healthy individuals. HealthNet of California also offers some of the best HMO plans available on the market. Health Net’s simple design and affordable plans are perfect match for healthy families. The way their family plans work is that once you meet your deductible HealthNet will pay 100% for all of your medical expenses after that. The down side is that their family plans do not cover regular sick doctor visits. The money that you are going to save monthly is going to be way worth no having doctor visits covered until the deductible is met. All you will get is negotiated rates that HealthNet has with doctors and hospitals. Your doctor office visits are going to cost you anywhere from $65 to $65 per visit.

Nationwide Health Plans have some of the great unique options that other plans just don’t offer. The only way you can get Nationwide health plans is by being a member of California Farm Bureau. Anyone can become a member of California Farm Bureau also know as Farmers Association. Because it is a group plans it has some options available that most individual plans do not have. You still have to qualify medically to get health insurance through Nationwide. Nationwide offers some of the most comprehensive health plans available on the market today. Nationwide health plans offer low maximum out of pocket. Some plans that they offer work similar to the way HealthNet’s plans work. Once you meet your deductible Nationwide covers everything at 100% and Nationwide plans cover doctor visit before you meet your deductible and Nationwide is the only health insurance company that has no prescription drug deductible on most of their plans. If you are looking for the most competitive HSA plans, Nationwide will be your choice.

PacifiCare is company that has been available to Californians for a long time until recently they were bought by United Health Care. PacificaCare will be replaced by Golden Rule health plans. If you have PacifiCare you might want to find out if you will have to re-qualify medically for new health insurance once they take the company of the market. Golden Rule owned by United Health Care witch known as the quality company and recommended everywhere. If you are considering PacifiCare I would wait for Golden Rule or get something else. For more great resource on Health Insurance visit www.GuideToHealthInsurance.org



By: Dennis Alexander

If you are looking for guaranteed acceptance term life insurance quotes, then you may be out of luck. In this day and age there are so many potential health risks and diseases that it’s virtually unheard of for an insurance company to give guaranteed acceptance term life insurance quotes or whole life insurance quotes, without some type of exclusions, restrictions or waiting periods written into the policy, such as the type of insurance policy you see on television for elderly people. Read the following article and you’ll see that illness or poor health conditions can strike anyone at just about any age.

There are many times in our lives that we believe that something may have happened for a reason. There are other times that this cliché may seem over used, but there definitely are times when unexpected things happen, sometimes these happen to benefit us. Some think these things are simply coincidence, while others believe that it is fate. Still others believe that it may be divine intervention, whatever you choose to believe, I know that it has changed the lives of both myself and my son.

Shop and Compare multiple Life Insurance quotes for free.

My son and his wife had been married for nearly two years and his wife was six months pregnant at the time, with their first child, when he thought that it would be a good idea to purchase more life insurance that they currently had. He got quite a few different life insurance quotes online and finally narrowed it down to two different companies that had low rates. He found out that, although the life insurance quotes that the got were low, companies that offer these low premiums required the most thorough health examinations. This wasn’t didn’t worry my son though as he’d been active in many team sports throughout high school and college and had always seemed to be very healthy. He is in excellent physical condition and is rarely ill.

He went to see the doctor to get the life insurance examination. He is only 27 years old and has never smoked cigarettes, so the life insurance quotes were very affordable. He took the form with him that the insurance company wanted the examining physician to complete and return. The insurance company wanted blood tests in addition to the thorough physical exam.

The physical went fine, but when he got the blood work back he found that his cholesterol was extremely high. The doctor was concerned about such high readings for a person that was so young. He told my son to to stay on a strict diet for the next month and then they would test him again. The doctor wanted to be certain that the test wasn’t measuring a cholesterol spike because of poor eating the day before the test. The doctor told my son that if the level didn’t come down significantly he would be forced to go on medication in order to avoid heart problems.

My son called me to let me know about how the physical for the life insurance quotes went and about his high cholesterol level. He was aware that my because brother had died of heart disease at the age of 45, and that his children had high cholesterol levels, His second test may come back the same. It did. Forunately, because of the life insurance quotes and physical examination, we were able to find out before it was too late.

The doctor immediately started him on medication. The doctor thinks that they have avoided an early stroke or heart attack because they caught the problem in time and because of the use of the medication. By looking into life insurance quotes when he did, my son may have prevented an early heart attack.

Although you may not find guaranteed acceptance term life insurance quotes or guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance quotes, there’s always a chance that you may be accepted. It doesn’t cost anything to get a free quote. Why not do it now?



By: Joe Stewart

DEMYSTIFY HEALTH INSURANCE ONLINE QUOTES

It goes without saying that comparing health insurance online quotes can be very daunting. Besides the jargon, the policies and terms vary widely from one plan to another. To top that, the number of quotes available in the market just keeps increasing every day. To make the process of understanding and comparing health insurance online quotes more manageable, refer to the following explanation of some of the terms you will come across.

Types of Health Insurance Plans

When examining the quotes, the type of health insurance plan may be a good place to start. Is an in-network or out-of-network plan better for you?

Indemnity Plan or Fee for Service Plan

Traditional type of health insurance plan You do not need to get approval for medical care for the insurance company cover it. You may see any doctor you want to. There is no provider network; hence it is an out-of-network plan. You receive limited coverage for preventive or routine care. Expensive with high deductible as well as premiums.

Managed Care Plan

Examples: PPS, POS or HMO Provider networks of doctors and medical centres are formed by the companies offering the managed care plan. On plans such as PPO, you receive less coverage if you do not go to an “in-network” provider. On plans such as HMO, you must go to an “in-network” provider to be covered. More affordable than indemnity plans.

Deductible, Coinsurance, Copayment and Out-of-Pocket Maximum

Deductible

This is what you’ll have to pay for the medical bills before the insurance coverage begins.

Coinsurance

This is the percentage of the medical bills you have to pay. Usually the insurance covers 80% of the bill and you’ll have to pay 20%. However, there is a pre-determined maximum amount that you’ll be responsible for each year.

Copayment

This is the fixed dollar amount of the medical bills that you have to pay.

Out-of-pocket maximum

This is the maximum amount you’ll pay for a year inclusive of the deductible, copayment and coinsurance. If this amount has been reached, the insurance will take over 100% of the bills.

Coverage:

Office Visits

They refer to your visit to the doctor or the dentist for routine care. If you do not make many office visits a year, you may consider dropping this cover to bring down your premium.

Maternity Care

You may also drop this cover if you are sure that you are not planning to have any babies. This will bring down the premium substantially.

Outpatient care

This refers to any treatment that does not require you to stay overnight. The coverage is usually low for this. Be a little careful with this as even serious costly treatments like chemotherapy may not require you to stay overnight. You’ll bear the major burden of the cost with limited outpatient care coverage in such instances.

As of far, you’ve been exposed to some of the main terms that you will come across when looking up different quotes. Although the list is not exhaustive, hope these brief explanations of the terms have helped demystify the health insurance online quotes.



By: Uma A Ilango

If you have any permanent health problems, such as type 1 diabetes, or have had cancer at one time in your family history, your monthly health insurance cost could easily be more than the house and car payment combined. If you have always had a health insurance benefit where you work and especially if you were a state or federal employee and now need to buy your own, you may not be able to afford the level of coverage you used to have. You want to know what to look for in a good but low cost health insurance.

There are many different plans available today in the US. And low cost health insurance is definitely available – if you know where and how to find it. Health insurance is simply the coverage of medical claims of an individual, against the medical costs.

Many people don’t realize that people without health insurance have bad teeth because, if you’re paying for everything out of your own pocket, going to the dentist for an exam seems like a luxury. It’s important to know what you need to look for in a good plan, so when you’re looking for cheaper insurance, you want the lowest cost per year that will fit into your budget of course.

Buying insurance online is one way to save money because the insurance company saves money because they don’t have to pay an agent a commission; this could mean as much as 10% to 15% savings for you. You can charge your payments to a credit card for online insurance which means you probably aren’t going to forget about a payment and ever be without insurance and still gives you another 30 days before you actually need to pay. Although it increases your risk, one way to lower your costs is to ask for a higher deductible; if you’re in good health you’ll more than likely come out ahead, barring the unforeseen accident etc.

One big advantage of buying health insurance online is you can easily change your coverage, deductibles, or payment options with just a few clicks of the mouse rather than going through any paperwork delay with a local agent. In case your doctor decides that something is a medical necessity and it’s not covered under your current plan, the insurance company may exercise its discretion in paying for it, but don’t hold your breath. And heart-attack victims who don’t have insurance are less likely to receive angioplasty. You want to avoid having to face a $100,000 open heart surgery without any health insurance at all.

Your local agents may only be able to offer what they have available to them and not be able to offer you what’s best for you both financially and health-wise. And, of course, every other country in the industrialized world insures its citizens; despite the extra hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year, we leave forty-five million people without any insurance at all.

Also there are several providers that offer cheap health insurance with low cost premiums for single people. People who have pneumonia and don’t have insurance are less likely to receive x-rays or consultations. One of the most important things to remember is that finding low cost health insurance is realizing that the main purpose of any insurance policy is to protect you from major medical financial losses, not to protect you from spending small amounts of money on doctor visits.

Online agents can help you submit any insurance claims necessary; you don’t need a local agent. Another way to lower your cost is to eliminate any coverage that you’ll not likely need such as maternity coverage.

Another way you might look for low cost insurance is to ask your doctor for suggestions. Cheap or low cost health insurance does mean a lower price and in some cases a lower quality, but the price may be more important to some people than the quality of the health plan.

To sum up: for people without pre-existing conditions or other complicating factors, a simple health insurance plan with a high deductible may be appropriate. There are many options online. Finding the best plan does not simply mean looking for the lowest premium but it means fully understanding all of the costs that are involved in your policy. So taking out insurance with higher deductibles and spending a little time online comparing quotes from at least five or more companies, will help you find the best low cost health insurance.



By: Helen Hecker