Buying Individual Health Insurance

If you’ve recently left your job to start your own business, or if you’re simply looking to change plans, the act of finding self employed medical insurance can be a tedious one.  It’s not as easy as signing on for a job with a company and getting your automatic group coverage after 90 days.

Unfortunately, those looking for self employed medical insurance have to search a little harder, as this is one of the necessary components of being self employed.  Depending on the state that you live in, you may have a wide variety of options, or you may have just a few carriers to choose from.

Self employed health insurance premiums can be quite costly to someone looking to make it on their own.  During a time in which every dollar matters, it’s important to find a plan that limits your out of pocket self employed medical expenses.  Doing this can be challenging, and much of it depends on some of the following factors:

• The state you live in.  Depending on your state, premiums may be higher or lower for identical self employed medical insurance policies.  For example, states like Florida, California, and New York are generally more expensive than states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Missouri.
• The state of your overall health.  The general rule is that the younger you are and the less medical conditions you have, the lower your self employed health insurance premiums will be.  However, each medical condition presents itself as a risk factor to the insurance carriers, as does increasing age.
• The benefits that you’re getting.  Depending on a number of factors like your office visit copay, prescription drug copay, your deductible, and more, your self employed medical plan will be higher or lower.  The more benefits you get, the more money you should be prepared to pay.

Self employed medical expenses are definitely something you’ll want to avoid, but sometimes these issues are inevitable, and out of our control.  If you want to go with something that largely protects you from the bigger things, you may want to consider getting an HSA self employed health insurance policy, which basically allows you to make contributions on an annual basis into an HSA, which stands for a health savings account.  These contributions are tax deductible and can be applied towards your deductible when they need to be used.  Writing such expenses off gives business owners incentive, making it a popular means of self employed medical insurance.  The incentives that HSA owners receive give the self employed savings on taxes, and many like this benefit.

If all of this sounds shaky to you and you prefer the coverage that you had before you left your job, you may want to look into your self employed health insurance COBRA option.  This basically gives you an 18 month window after you’ve left your job, where you can get the same benefits from the same carrier that you previously had.  Unfortunately, this will come at a considerably higher cost than whatever it was that you were previously paying, and it also only lasts for 18 months.  However, it will give you the full range of benefits covered through your old plan, including all preexisting conditions.