Shopping For Family Health Insurance

It can be complicated enough to go shopping online for individual health insurance, but when you need a policy that covers the whole family, the issues involved become all that much more complex.

​Anyone looking for a family health insurance plan should consider talking to a professional, independent insurance agent/broker. But before you even make that call, it's a good idea to get basic knowledge of the factors involved.

Assessing Family Health Insurance Needs
The difficulty in finding the right health plan for a whole family isn't so much in locating a plan that fits your criteria, but in deciding what the criteria is going to be to begin with. Family health care needs tend to be less predictable due to the fact multiple people are involved and kids tend to be more prone to random illnesses and injuries than the average adult.

Additionally, you may have the possibility or even the likelihood of a pregnancy in the family in the coming year. In that case, you want a plan that will adequately cover prenatal care, childbirth, and post-birth recovery. Without the right health plan, many families find it hard to have a child or two in a period of only 2 or 3 years.

You can often find family health insurance policies that give you a discount per person for including multiple people. But the total cost, of course, will still be higher than an individual plan. Don't skimp on coverage that you need just to get the lowest premium. The goal is to minimize likely out of pocket costs under any reasonably possible scenario for the year ahead.

Carefully Consider Your Family Deductible
When two or more people are covered under the same health insurance policy, there are two deductible numbers you need to be aware of instead of just one. Both an individual and a family deductible will be named on your policy.  

Here’s how it works. First, there is a deductible for each individual covered. Let's say your individual deductibles are at $500. Your insurance carrier will start paying towards covered services after you have paid the first 500 out of your own pocket. But, that is just going to apply to health care that you are receiving.Just because you’ve met your deductible doesn’t mean that your other family members insurance coverage will start paying. If more than one family member is covered you will each have to meet an individual deductible.

But once you hit the family deductible, say $1,000, then the insurer starts paying the coinsurance percentage regardless of which family member is receiving the care.

Also, realize that you need to gauge your coinsurance (between 60% and 90%), and copayments (per usage out of pocket limits), and maximum per year out of pocket expenses (different than the deductible) against your likely yearly medical costs. It's a big, complex math problem, and you need all the numbers to plug into the equation if you want to get the right answer - which then guides you in selecting the right family health insurance plan.

There are many factors that go into finding your perfect family health insurance plan. Talk to an experienced agent at Summerlin Benefits Consulting today for assistance in "doing the math" and optimizing your 2019 plan!
​