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Suffer Consequences if You Let Health Insurance Lapse.
by: Brian Thacker
If you are between jobs and you are considering not paying for COBRA health
insurance benefits, you may need to look at alternative interim insurance coverage.
COBRA is the law that allows employees to keep their health insurance coverage
for 18 months once they leave their job by paying expensive premiums. While COBRA
may not be your best option for health insurance, Less expensive medical plans
may be an important and necessary expense.
All new health insurance plans are allowed to force new subscribers to suffer
a 12 month waiting period for pre-existing conditions. Fortunately there is another
law that allows for portability of coverage without having to suffer pre-existing
condition waiting periods. That law says that if you have had CONTINUOUS COVERAGE
for the 12 months prior to and leading up to the beginning of the new insurance
coverage, you will be given credit toward any new pre-existing condition waiting
period. If you had 6 months of continuous health insurance coverage prior to
taking out your new policy, 6 months would be applied to the 12 month waiting
period and bring the new pre-existing condition waiting period down to 6 months.
If you had 12 months of continuous coverage, you will not have any waiting period
for a pre-existing condition on the new health insurance plan.
CONTINUOUS COVERAGE is defined as continuous health insurance coverage with
no lapse of more than 62 days. If you go more than 62 days without coverage,
you may have to suffer the full waiting period for pre-existing conditions. For
example, if you were taking High Blood Pressure medication, you may have to wait
12 months after starting and paying for the new insurance before the insurance
would cover the High Blood Pressure medication.
COBRA might be too expensive for you. However you can get a high deductible
individual plan that will satisfy the continuous coverage requirements at a much
lower cost. Some short-term insurance plans do not meet the requirements to satisfy
the portability law. Speak with a health insurance agent like those at http://www.thackeragency.com to
make sure you maintain continuous insurance coverage at the most affordable price.
Tell the agent your particular situation and they'll be glad to put you in the
best insurance product for you.
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About The Author
Brian Thacker is a health insurance agent and owner of two insurance websites,
http://www.thackeragency.com and http://www.short-termhealthinsurance.com. He
has been serving his clients for more than 10 years.
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This article was posted on April 18, 2006 |
