Most people today feel safe only have the life insurance benefit provided by their employer or none at all. Some people do not think life insurance is necessary or do not get to getting a policy in place for their family. This is a large mistake for your family if something happens unexpectedly. They will have wished they had the life policy on their loved one.

Employer life insurance is usually inexpensive and does not have a required physical to become covered by the insurance. You can easily buy up your insurance to some number of times of your salary. These plans can provide coverage while you are employed, but what happens when you transition jobs or loose your job as it is very common in today’s economy. You would leave your family exposed, no one every can predict what the future will be. I would highly recommend in having personal life insurance to protect your family with or without employer sponsored life insurance.

I have become more aware of this situation as I had only employer sponsored life insurance, and I went for a long time between jobs and I did leave my family exposed on my providing for their future. I have since been able to secure life policies to protect my wife and daughter. I will never again leave my family exposed to the financial risk of not having life insurance for them. I wish my Dad would have suggested that advice to me to get an individual policy in place to guarantee my insurability and protect my family. In a future blog post I will share some ideas to help your children protect them for their life, but I want to focus on you and your spouse and children.

I do hear stories from time to time on people who did not properly protect their family with having life insurance in force. The remaining family members have the stress of loosing their loved one, but the beginning of the financial stress as to how they will afford the lifestyle that they have gotten accustomed to. I have seen people go through drastic life changes to lifestyle without the help of life insurance. The stories are of unexpected deaths through accident or illness and sometimes when they have been between jobs or in jobs that do not offer life insurance benefits. I have even heard stories of people retiring from a job, and when they retired they did not have any life insurance in place, so the spouse was left with a life changing financial crisis. I hope never to let anyone not understand the exposure to their family and the importance of life insurance.

The great thing about an individual policy for life insurance will let you keep your policy in force no matter what your work and health situation once it is in place and keep paying the premiums. I would advise you get with your insurance broker to help you with your needs analysis to help you determine what your family needs are for either spouse. This will help you determine how much insurance you should have to maintain you lifestyle. It takes into account the debt, earnings, college, day care, and other factors that you should take into account for the face value of your life insurance policy.

I would not wait to begin the process to get the life insurance in place as you never know what the future will bring for your health or if something unexpected can happen. The process is easy and the insurance broker can help you determine the type of policies that may be best for your particular situation. Life insurance is a necessary insurance for your family’s future as we do not know what future is for any of us. The one thing to know is the remaining family members will have probably wished they had the life insurance protection in place if you never thought it was a priority. Let us know how we may be able to help you start your process.

How to get health insurance for a child without a parent or guardian

Getting health insurance for a child by them self (without a parent/guardian) is a challenge with health care reform.  I am an insurance broker located in Austin, Texas and I help people protect their family with health, dental and life insurance.  Being an insurance broker you tend to run into many different situations that you try to help people find the best coverage for their particular situation.  Before the health care reform, the hardest part was placing people who could not be insured by a carrier due to preexisting conditions.  In Texas we have been lucky to have the Texas Health Insurance Pool for people who had cancer, heart attack, diabetes and other ineligible medical history.  This is a hard task to have to inform people that because of their condition, they have to go to the Texas Health Insurance Pool to obtain coverage, though major medical coverage at a higher cost.

Since September of 2010, we had a new law go into effect to help Americans get coverage.  These changes included no riders/preexisting conditions for children, so they have all conditions covered with no waiting period, preventative/wellness/physicals available to everyone who had insurance.  Adults are expected to have the same no riders rule starting in 2014.  The government did add a plan to help those states who did not have a Health Insurance Pool, and some states who had a Pool as well have the Government Insurance, they call this plan Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.  This plan was similar goal as the Texas Health Insurance Pool.  The Government Plan has a few items I cannot understand, they have a waiting period, and people need to be uninsured for 6-months to be eligible.  You do have the advantage of no waiting period for preexisting conditions to be covered if you have been uninsured, other than the 6-months you need to be uninsured to be eligible.

The intent of the changes all sound good on paper, but this week I ran into a situation that really opened my eyes to a condition we created for healthy children.  I would have never guessed that this was a side effect of the changes.  When the changes when into effect for children to be issued without any riders or they cannot be denied coverage, the major medical carriers decided that they would not offer coverage to any child under 18 without a parent on the policy.  This means no children can get a policy by themselves, even if they are healthy without any conditions.  You would think the Health Insurance Pool or the government plan would be obtainable for child who cannot obtain coverage from a major medical carrier, but this is not the case for healthy children.

Health insurance rates have gone up more this year as result of some of the changes mandated by the law, making it harder for Americans and Texans to afford comprehensive coverage for themselves and their family.  This higher costs cause parents to make tradeoffs of paying necessary bills verses obtaining health coverage for their family.  They make tradeoffs for themselves, but try to cover their children with health insurance.

The issue that opened my eyes was a young girl who legal guardian is the grandmother (on Medicare) who was looking to obtain coverage for her granddaughter and needs to look at individual policies for her.  I originally thought the Texas Health Insurance Pool was the best option for her.  She had not been uninsured for 6-months, so the government plan was not an option.  We decided to submit an application to the Texas Health Insurance Pool, and get her coverage, so I thought.  After a few weeks, we had gotten a letter back from the pool rejecting the reason for obtaining coverage as being a child under 18-years old.  I thought that this would be a valid reason to be accepted into the health insurance pool.  I ended up calling to ask the question as to why they would not accept this young girl.  I ended up talking to the Director of the Pool for Texas, and he told me that they pool would not be able to accept this healthy young girl.  He mentioned a hole in the health insurance pool rules and a flaw in the major medical companies allowed offer insurance in Texas and not offering coverage to children.  The government plan you would think may be the next option, but they would accept her if you can prove that her premium is more than their rates.  I have not found a solution for this young healthy girl that really has nowhere to obtain major medical coverage.

One suggestion that could help improve this in the future is to impose that companies that offer health insurance in the state of Texas need to offer policies to children alone and they do not have the option to reject or not insure children without a parent.  This may take a while to get addressed so, children may need to go to limited benefit plans if they are healthy.  This is not the best approach for protecting their health and families financial exposure.  I think we need to make people aware of this big gap that hurts healthy children from obtaining coverage.  It is sad to see the changes help the sick and families who can afford health insurance, but hurt the healthy and less fortunate.  I just want to help people who need coverage find the best solution, but in this case, we do not have one.  I will do my part to raise the awareness of the issue.

Health Care Reform Updates for 2011.  January 1st we have some changes in the non-grandfathered plans, some companies are letting you know about the added benefits with a premium increase letter.  These increases in premium are happening to support the increased benefits provided by the health care reform.  The changes will allow you to have wellness exams (annual physicals) included with your plans.  This will include any tests that are needed to be run in conjunction with your annual exam.  This includes mammograms, pap, colonoscopy and other items that we would usually have some out of pocket expense for.    This is a good thing keeping healthy, the down side is your monthly premiums may be going up.  It is always good to check to make sure that you are at a competitive rates.  You will need to stay with your current company if you have any issues currently in progress – unfinished tests, diagnosis and still under a doctors care.  If you have an older plan – grandfathered plan, you may be better off staying with that plan instead of changing to a newer plan, as you may see premiums higher than what you currently have.  We are happy to show you what your current options are.

There is never any added costs for working with an insurance broker, and they are a valuable resource to help you get the best policy for your specific situation.  Let us assist you with your finding the best plan.

I totally understand the challenge to find health coverage for you and your family. I have had the similar problems when I have been between jobs. I have tried to get advice on what to do for my family. One time I had asked my property and casualty agent what I should do, he did not provide me any guidance. He told me to pick something from Unicare, oh, and please input my agent number when you do. I really felt bad about the lack of help that I could find. This is one of the reasons I though I could help where I had trouble finding assistance.

I know many people have been asking me how is this new health care bill going to affect my health insurance?  I do not think we have a full picture of all the effect of this bill on health insurance.  The first big milestone is the allowing all children to obtain medical coverage without any preexisting conditions starting in September this year.  To prepare for this we have some early warning that most health insurance companies are preparing for rate increases scheduled for July, these are to be 25% plus, some even at 50% plus to the premiums we are at today. They are planning to remove all rate guarantee protection at that time as well.  What this means to you, is that health insurance costs will go up and they can fluctuate as they need to support the claims vs premiums.  If you have not locked in your rate protection before July you are in for a tough ride with a company that will honor rate guarantees prior to July 1st.  This would be something to get from your company to know if you are protected.  I know of only one company that will honor the rate protection for up to 36-months and they have it in writing.

I would recommend that everyone who is wondering if they should have a review of their current coverage, now is the time to take a look at that and ensure that we get a plan in place to control your costs through the next three years.  I believe we will see things get much worse before they stabilize.  If you just let it ride with the hopes of your premium staying controlled, then you may find your new premium unaffordable.  Talk to us to get your rate controlled with a 36-month lock that they will honor through all the changes.  Do it sooner rather than later to not miss locking in your rate. Be prepared and control your premiums, before you find things out of control.  Talk to us soon.

I wanted to share an Article I wrote on EzineArticles about an affordable health insurance approach that I currently use with my customers to help them keep their premiums low.  This method I currently use on my family.  I am not sure how many agents are doing this, I know if you buy on the internet without an agents help, it is hard to figure out this approach alone.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Health-Insurance—An-Affordable-Approach&id=3494485