Saturday, 17 January 2009
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I’m finally insured!
So I finally got approved for insurance. A brief overview of how I did it:
- Researched a ton of plans. Used resources like about.com and Wikipedia and a lot of other Googling to figure out what “short term” coverage exactly meant.
- I discovered that short term plans have really high deductibles (at least $500). Given the short duration of my noncoverage, I determined that my health costs were going to be significantly less than the deductible, so I’d have to cough up the money for my doctor’s visits, prescriptions, shots, etc anyways. Thus, it was more important to me to find the cheapest monthly plan with a decent coverage for big accidents.
- Then I discovered that there were daily insurance plans (i.e. if you know the exact date x days from now that you’ll get insurance again, there exist plans that cover you for those x days). They turn out to be cheaper, too, because the insurance company knows exactly how long you need coverage for and that adjusts their risk calculations.
- I called up my doctor and discovered that they weren’t in the Blue Cross network, so that ruled out a Blue Cross plan (it’s too much trouble to switch doctors right now!).
- Most of my plan research was done on ehealthinsurance.com. Why did I choose them? They had the first result on Google and their site looked reasonably trustworthy and was easy to use. No other reasons, really.
- I decided to go with the HealthNet QuickNet Daily 2000 PPO plan. I need coverage for ~90 days, and the plan had a $2000 deductible with reasonable emergency care benefits. The cost? I pay about $1.05 a day, so that turned out to be ~$90 total. Hey, that’s reasonable.
- I ran through the online application which wasn’t involving at all. You barely need any paperwork on hand to fill it out. I submitted my application in 15 minutes.
- Within two days I got a notification saying that I had been approved for the plan. Here’s a tip: check your spam folder for messages. Unsurprisingly, email with “insurance” in the subject line and body gets flagged pretty easily
- HealthNet just sent me a policy packet a few days ago, and told me to wait for my cards to arrive in the mail.
So, that’s the end to a relatively painless process. Many of you have been super helpful with some tips on short term insurance. Hopefully they’ll be of some use to you (especially you graduating seniors!):
- If you were covered under your parents’ insurance, check with their employer if there is a grace period. Thanks, Bowen!
- You can check to see if you are eligible for a COBRA plan (essentially, it extends your eligibility under the plan you used to be under). Thanks, Lena!
- Check with your alumni association to see if they offer insurance. Cal grads, CAA offers discounted insurance plans with Liberty Mutual. Thanks, Charissa!
- You can pick up part-time classes at a local community college to continue your coverage under your existing plan. Thanks, James!
- Angela and Allie recommended Blue Shield plans, Tonik in particular.
- Laura points us to the SHIP website to compare coverage plans and discover how you’ll be affected as a SHIP participant after graduation.
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