What Factors Affect Utah Individual Health Insurance?
When purchasing individual health care insurance, a number of key factors must be evaluated before selecting that final policy. There is the choice between HMO vs. PPO type policies, the amount of out of pocket costs (yearly deductibles and co-pays), and the financial resources of the insurance provider to consider. But, perhaps, the most significant criterion to influence your insurance coverage is the health insurance provider's practices on the medical underwriting of individual applicants.
The medical underwriting of individual health insurance policies is significantly different from what is required for group insurance plans. By law, in a group insurance plan, there cannot be discrimination in benefits or coverage available to any individual member of the group based on the individual's health status. However, for individual insurance plans, discrimination resulting from an individual's specific health status is routinely performed now and is considered completely legal! If an applicant for an individual health insurance policy has a pre-existing condition, the insurance provider is free to refuse insurance to the applicant or may provide only health coverage that excludes the disability or condition.
This practice occurs as a result of the required medical underwriting of every new health care benefits policy which is applied to most new policies bought in the open marketplace. What medical underwriting really means is that the insurance provider is evaluating the likely financial risk attributable to the proposed policy based on the specific health status of the applicant. Before applying for a new insurance policy, consumers must always talk to the medical underwriting team of the insurance provider early in the process to learn more about how they will respond on specific health conditions.