What Factors Affect New Hampshire Individual Health Insurance?
When looking for individual health coverage, several factors should be taken into account before selecting a policy. There are the differences between the HMO and PPO approaches to insurance, the level of out of pocket costs (deductibles and co-pays), and the financial strength of the insurance provider to consider. But, possibly, the most relevant factor to impact your coverage is the insurance company's procedures on medical underwriting of new applicants.
The medical underwriting requirement for individual insurance plans is very different from the procedures of group health care programs. In accordance with the law, in a group insurance plan, there must not be any discrimination in coverage levels applied to any individual group member based on that member's health status. In contrast, for individual insurance plans, discrimination arising from an individual's health status is a routine practice today and is totally legal! If a new applicant for an individual health care benefits policy has a disability or existing medical condition, the insurance company may refuse coverage to the person or may offer only coverage that excludes the health disability or condition.
This practice occurs because of the requirement for medical underwriting of each new health insurance policy which is applied to new policies purchased in the individual insurance marketplace. What the concept of medical underwriting really means is that the health benefits provider is analyzing the potential financial risk likely to arise from the new policy due to the health status of the individual. When applying for new health coverage, consumers can always call the medical underwriting staff in the health insurance company first to learn how they treat various health issues.