- Check to see if your state has a high risk pool for health insurance. The best resource we have found for that information is www.selfemployedcountry.org/riskpools.html. These pools are in place for people with pre-existing conditions who cannot find health insurance commercially.
- Not all states have high risk pools. The most popular states for retirement—Florida, Arizona and Nevada—either do not have pools or are not accepting risks at this time. It might be worth thinking twice before you change your residence to one of those states if you have a pre-existing condition and need health insurance.
If you have reached the age of 65 and qualify for Medicare, you need to purchase Medigap insurance for the expenses that Medicare does not cover. To learn about Medigap insurance, use the Personal Plan Finder at www.medicare.gov. It is easy to use and will lead you to the best alternatives.
All Medigap insurance is fundamentally the same. Although there are 12 options, only two are comprehensive—Plans C and F. Other plans leave significant gaps and are probably not worth the investment. Every company that offers these plans has exactly the same benefit, so you are essentially shopping on the basis of price. The average cost for these two plans is approximately $150 per month, but in some cases can be considerably higher. Although there is a fee associated with it, comparing your options with www.weissratings.com can be wealth worth the expenditure.
Lastly, one resource with a wealth of useful information is The Insurance Maze by Kimberly Lankford, a columnist with Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. The first two chapters of The Insurance Maze comprehensively cover the subjects discussed in this column, as well as some of the resources we have pointed you towards.
In our next column, we’ll look at specific benefits like mental health coverage, insurance options for recent graduates, and pre-existing conditions in general. We’ll also give you a quick run-down of the different types of individual health insurance, as well as our thoughts on each type.
- Do you have questions about medical benefits for our health insurance experts? Send them to AskHealthCue@thcn.com.
