What Factors Affect Indiana Individual Health Insurance?
When purchasing individual health insurance plans, a number of factors must be considered before selecting a final policy. There is the choice between HMO and PPO categories of plans, the amount of out of pocket expenses (annual deductibles and co-pays), and the financial stability of the insurance company to consider. But, perhaps, the most important factor to affect your coverage is the health insurance company's practices on the medical underwriting of applicants.
The medical underwriting of individual health care policies is dramatically different from what happens with group health insurance programs. By law, in a group insurance plan, there should be no discrimination in coverage applied to any individual in the group based on that member's individual health status. However, for individual insurance plans, discrimination as a result of individual health status is actively performed now and is completely legal! If an applicant for an individual health benefits plan has a disability or pre-existing condition, the insurance company is free to deny insurance to the applicant or to offer only coverage that excludes the disability or condition.
This practice occurs as a result of the necessary medical underwriting of a new health insurance policy which applies to the majority of new policies purchased in the open marketplace. What medical underwriting really means is that the health insurance company is evaluating the potential financial risk under the proposed policy based on the health status of the applicant. Before applying for a new insurance policy, consumers should talk to the medical underwriting department of the insurance company early in the process to find out how they deal with various medical issues.