If you are working to have your family covered by a health insurance plan, you may be looking at a number of options for how to best get everyone the coverage they need.
Generally, there are two ways to go - individual health insurance plans or family health insurance plans. An individual health insurance plan will do just what you would expect, insure just one individual, by name. A family health insurance plan on the other hand will cover all the members of your immediate family, usually two parents and all their children.
If you have a large family, what you need to have may be a no-brainer - have family insurance that will cover you, your spouse and all the kids. But what if there aren't as many of you? Today's families come in all sizes. Some couples have only one child. Other families have only one parent with a child or two. In these cases, a family plan may not be the best deal out there.
For the most part the price of a family plan is meant to cover two parents and two children. If your family is smaller than this, it is a good idea to compare the price of individual policies for the members of your family as well as the price for a family plan.
There are some important considerations to make before you decide what type of plan you want to go with other than what the premiums will be.
What are the deductibles? The premium is just one part of what you will pay for health insurance. You also need to know what the deductible will be once you need medical attention. If your deductibles are too high, you may always feel like you are paying a fortune in medical bills before the insurance ever kicks in.
Is your doctor included? If you are very fond of your particular doctor, you need to make sure that person is in the plan that you go with. Different insurance companies have different networks of doctors that they approve of. Make sure your doctor is included.
Are there preexisting conditions? If anyone in your family has preexisting health conditions, you could be in for trouble. Many insurance companies will not accept individual policies for those who have preexisting health conditions like diabetes or cancer. In this case you will have to look back to a family plan that must accept all the members of the family.
Do you have high-risk habits? Health insurance companies are keeping an eye on a lot of health conditions these days to see who is at risk and who is likely going to be less of an expense to them. Two of the things they look at are if the candidate is a smoker or overweight as both of these are linked to medical conditions down the road.
Steve Sikes is an MBA and writes articles on insurance and other financial products. To read other educational articles on insurance at the InsuredItAll Learning Center or to get free insurance quotes for auto, home, health, life or long term care insurance, you will want to visit http://www.InsuredItAll.com
