Getting Denied For Health Insurance is Easy

Today shopping for individual private health insurance online is fairly simple. Simply type the keywords “health insurance” on any major search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN and you are virtually guaranteed to come across a multitude of websites with designer custom made plans. However, too often consumers who are simply weighing their options forget the bigger picture. It’s called medical underwriting. Medical underwriting is a process in which an insurer will evaluate under what terms and provisions they will insure an applicant if at all. Many times shoppers spend months trying to find the perfect benefit plan for the best price only to find out the plan they applied for came back after they submitted the application with a much higher price than anticipated or worse, they were declined coverage altogether and now cant get individual health insurance because they passed up what their employer offered.

Getting approved for individual health insurance coverage is not so easy.

If you had group insurance offered by your employer for most of the time you had coverage and this is the first time shopping for individual private health insurance, do your self a favor don’t just shop to get a feel for the market, take the next step and apply. Applying for coverage is the only real way you will really know what offer will be given to you and under what terms or price. Consult with a knowledgably licensed insurance agent who is familiar with the medical underwriting guidelines of the major medical insurance carriers offering the coverage you seek and begin to initiate the application process. All insurance carriers on the individual market will require an application to be complete with the first month’s premium deposit for consideration. The reason why insurers request this deposit is to ensure the applicant is serious about applying since they will incur administrative cost to determine if they will insure you or not, however some insurers will only withdraw funds if your approved while others will take the first months premium deposit and refund you if you decline their offer or if you are declined coverage altogether. Basically the entire process is two fold while you are considering them they are considering you. 

There are many reasons why an insurer will come back with a much higher price than anticipated in regards to the benefits you apply for or decline the application altogether. Here are just a few common examples.

Height and Weight: The physical condition of a proposed insured is of basic significance in underwriting. One of the determinants of physical condition is build. Build includes height, weight, and distribution of the weight. Experience has shown that being overweight increases the likelihood of death or sickness at all ages so for an insurer to justify the cost they will raise your rate accordingly if accepted. 

High Blood Pressure: Hypertension or High Blood Pressure is an intermittent or sustained elevation of diastolic or systolic blood pressure. Hypertension is a major cause of stroke, cardiac disease, and renal failure. Complications occur late in the disease and can attack any organ system. Cardiac complications include coronary artery disease, angina, myocardial infarction, heart failure, arrhythmias, and sudden death. Neurologic complications include cerebral infarctions and hypertensive encephalopathy. Hypertensive retinopathy can cause blindness or glaucoma. Reno vascular hypertension can lead to renal failure. Just because it is controlled does not mean an insurer will accept you, also any combination of High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, and Obesity almost always result in a decline with most carriers or at least a very high premium. The reason for all of this is from the insures point of view at very best you will create medical expenses in the form of diagnostic test, assessments, treatment, medication or at worst heart attacks and kidney transplants costing lots of money. 

Smoking: When an individual uses tobacco in any form, whether it involves chewing, dipping, or smoking cigarettes, cigars, and a pipe, is an important risk factor by itself. In the past smoking or other tobacco use was considered in underwriting, but only rarely as a factor of importance by itself. For example, if a person had a respiratory problem and smoked, the underwriting decision might be less favorable than for an otherwise similarly situated non smoker. Smoking unaccompanied by any other negative factor however, was not a cause for a less favorable rating and continues to be ignored as a factor in many markets worldwide. Insurers now understand that smoking and any other tobacco use, even in the absence of any other negative factor, causes expected mortality and morbidity to be worse than average and the degree of variation is of such significance as to warrant

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5