When reviewing your group or individual renewals for health insurance you should look at alternative options with your current company. With group insurance, your Broker should review your options and market your benefits with any other company that works in your size group; along with a thorough analysis of your entire Employee Benefit Design, cost, implementation, enrollment and all services after your plan is in place.
Individual Insurance: When working with an agent make sure that the product that they offer is a "major medical" plan. Many people do not know that there are limited medical benefit plans, that may be cheaper, but expose you and your loved ones to potential financial exposure that is not acceptable for the savings that you may received.
Limited medical benefit plans do not have an Out of Pocket Maximum per year, what this means, is that your out of pocket annually could be a lot higher than you think. The technical term is "stop loss", it basically means, that your losses or incurred costs are stopped at a certain amount. If there is no stop loss, and you or a family member have a catastrophic event, then losses and bills never stop, and you could accumlate $100's of thousands of dollars annually. Be very careful when reviewing a policy, that the summary specifically defines what your maximum deductible and out of pocket loss will be annually.
Ask your broker what kind of services that they provide after the insurance has been issued. If their answer is that they refer you to the insurance company, then service is non-existent and you are required to resolve any billing, claim or other issue on your own. Many times, these type of issues can be very complicated and time consuming. Ask specifically if there is any service personnel in their office that is assigned and will help you when you need it. We have a dedicated Service Department and Account Executive to assist all client needs.
Our Agency is committed to our individual and group clients to provide superior customer service, analysis and services. Please contact us if you are interested in interviewing us to work with you as your broker, or to discuss questions on what we can do for you:
Catherine A. Crowel, President Phone: (770) 442-1853
