7 Benefits of Individual Health Insurance Plans 2021
Key points:
- Individual health insurance policy is the type of insurance for an individual for their personal requirements.
- Generally, the self-employed people or individuals who don’t have the facilities of health plan sponsored by their employer or government purchase such insurance policy.
- Earlier, people were familiar with only the job-based health insurance. However, with the changes in health schemes, more people are enrolling and buying individual health plan policies.
8 benefits of individual health insurance:
Some of the benefits of such plans are as follows:
- Helpful in times of switching jobs: There may be times when employees switch their jobs. In such cases, individual health insurance may be very beneficial.
- Choosing the best policy: Employees can opt for the best policy based on their requirements.
- Affordable health insurance: It is less costly and in some instances, a premium tax credit can be availed.
- Free of restrictions: Individual health insurance policies give facilities of all the essential health benefits and it can be enrolled by everyone with or without the existence of medical conditions.
- Premium free: Such policies are free from premium and thus one can get health insurance free of cost.
- Covers insurance for family members: In most cases, individual health insurance provides coverage to family members.
- No health check-ups: For other health insurance policies, a medical test is required for enrolling in health insurance. Individual health insurance on the other hand is free of such check-ups
How to apply?
Individual health plans can be availed through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges. And after enrolling, an individual never gets rejected. This is because of the health law that states that anyone who applies for individual health insurance should be accepted.
Let us discuss when and how can an individual buy the individual health insurance policies.
Open enrolment period: For the majority of the states, the open enrolment period is from Nov 1 to Dec 15 each year.
Let us discuss when and how can an individual buy the individual health insurance policies.
Open enrolment period: For majority of the states, the open enrolment period is from Nov 1 to Dec 15 each year.
The following are the extended dates for 2020 state-wise:
California
Oct. 15 to Jan. 15
Colorado
Nov. 1 to Jan. 15
D.C
Nov. 1 to Jan. 31
Massachusetts
Nov. 1 to Jan. 23
Minnesota
Nov. 1 to Dec. 23
New York
Nov. 1 to Jan. 31
Rhode Island
Nov. 1 to Dec. 23
Special enrolment period: The other time, when an individual can enroll is when there is a qualifying event. Such plans last for 60 days only.
The following are some of the qualifying events for which a special enrolment can be made:
- Marriage
- Having a baby, or adopting a child
- Becoming a U.S citizen
- Shifting
- Losing job
Top health insurance plans:
The following are the average rate changes of some of health insurance policies that will be implemented by the next year by insurers offering plans through NY State of Health:
Name of the insurer
Rate of increase/decrease
Number of enrolees/members
Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan (CDPHP)
4.3% increase
7249
Emblem
3.8% increase
16,297
Health Plus HP (Empire)
16.6% increase
15,582
Excellus Health Plan
0.2% decrease
25,167
Fidelis
1.6% increase
118,3338
Healthfirst PHSP
2.5% decrease
39,980
HealthNow New York
2.8% decrease
9680
Independent Health Benefits Corporation
5.3% decrease
4,754
Metro Plus Health Plan
5% increase
13,943
MVP Health Plan
3.8% increase
34,897
Health Insurance Rates:
There are different kinds of metal tiers of health insurance. Metal tiers are based on what percentage of health care is required for the insurance plan to get covered. Catastrophic and Bronze plans are two different kinds of metal tiers that cover the smallest percentage and that have the highest deductibles and coinsurance. The platinum metal tier plan offer the largest amount of coverage, and 90 percent of all costs are covered with such a plan. The Platinum plans are the most expensive while the Bronze / Catastrophic plans are the cheapest.
The following table shows the average rates of different metal tiers for a 40-year-old applicant:
Thus, personal or individual health plan has many benefits and are much economical than traditional corporate plans. The smartest way is to buy individual health insurance along with the corporate plans. This will help a person to get benefits from both the plans.