Group Health Insurance

Five steps to make your medical plan more affordable:

1. Like most other employers, pass some of the cost on to your employees. Usually this approach would require employees to contribute a percentage of their premium cost or to pay some or all of the difference between coverage for them as individuals and the cost for their families.
   
   
2. Consider a premium conversion plan. With this plan, any contributions towards qualified health benefits made by employees through their employer are tax advantaged. Employees save on federal and state income taxes. Because they are reporting less income, their social security contributions are also reduced. As an employer, you would also save 7.65% on the employee income which no longer has to be reported to the IRS. Because the employee pays less social security tax, you have less to match.
   
   
3. Create incentives for employees to find other means to cover spouses. Husband and wife coverage is usually significantly more expensive than two individuals being covered on your health plan. Why is this? The reason is that the insurance company automatically assumes that if an employee is covering a spouse on their health plan, that spouse is more likely to have pre-existing conditions. If the spouse is healthy, it is significantly less expensive for them to get individual medically underwritten coverage on their own.
   
   
4. Create incentives for employees to find other means to cover children. Many states including Pennsylvania, participate with the "Children’s Health Insurance Program". This program offers exceptional coverage for free or low cost to children of parents that reside in their state. The premium savings can be substantial. In many instances it can be the difference between an individual or parent children listed on the group bill.
   
   
5. Put your group health plan out to bid every year. Health insurers count on employers and employees to become comfortable with their health plan over time. This gives them pricing power when the plan renews for the year. Employers are reluctant to change because they are reluctant to go through the aggravation and time it may take to look at other options. However, most good insurance brokers will alleviate most of the burden of work to the employer.
   
   

Health Insurance: Important things to consider when shopping

"Wow! That’s a great rate.…. What’s the catch?"

Maybe there isn’t any. An insurance company may be extremely efficient and have negotiated better deals with doctors and hospitals than other companies. If its costs are lower, it can offer cheaper rates. Of course, there are other ways a company can limit its costs.

• Underwriting - This is the process by which an insurance company decides which applicants it will actually accept. It’s like 100 guys trying out for a football team, but only 50 making the squad. But the company is looking for healthy people, and everyone in your family is pretty healthy. So, there shouldn’t be any problem… right? Not necessarily, an insurance company looks at health problems in terms of how much money it may have to pay out in later claims. So let’s say that you had a little back injury a couple of years ago. It still aches occasionally, but it doesn’t slow you down. Your not-so-bad back may stop you in your tracks with some companies. They reason that back injuries may never go away; they may eventually require surgery and could cost the company a bundle. There are lots of other "little" health problems, that some companies won’t think are so little.
  
  Remember that all insurance