Health insurance please

Parent Cafe
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<p>I am posting this in the parents forum because parents would know more about insurance. I’m attending NYU in the fall and they require that students have health insurance. They will either automatically enroll you in their insurance or you can waive it if you have your own. These are the guidelines for private insurance:

  1. The insurance company must be based in the U.S.
  2. The insurance must remain in effect from august 21, 2007 through august 20, 2008.
  3. The plan must provide inpatient hospitalization benefits in the NYC area.
  4. The plan must provide outpatient benefits in NYC
  5. The max. benefit payable under the insurance plan must be at least $250,000 per condition.</p>

<p>I have insurance, but it is in another state and doesn’t offer service in NY. I would take the school’s insurance, but they want one lump sum instead of monthly payments and i don’t have it. Finally, my question is: Does anyone know of any cheap insurance companies in NY that satisfy the guidelines? or would it be wise to somehow come up with the money for my school’s insurance?</p>

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<p>Mackie45,
Does you insurance company provide for out-of-network benefits? That is, if you use a doctor who is not covered within your plan, will they pay some percentage of his/her fee? I find it hard to believe that your own insurance would not cover you if you needed to be hospitalized out of state. Have you tried calling someone in customer service at your insurance company and asking these questions? That’s what I would do in your circumstance.</p>

3

<p>Who is your insurance carrier and are you only guessing about coverage or know for certain? Have you looked at your parents plan summary? Unless your in a restrictive hmo, you should have out of network coverage (albiet lesser) for anywhere and emergency services are always available.</p>

<p>Please go back to your plan information, read it through and come back and inform us.</p>

4

<p>My insurance carrier is peachcare which is an insurance company in GA. If I go on vacation or a trip to NY, then they would cover me. But they won’t give me coverage if i move to NY for 9 months. I’m positive on this since my mother and i have both called more than once.</p>

5

<p>Mackie45,
If you don’t mind a somewhat personal question…are you receiving any financial aid from NYU? If so, I would call the FA office and tell them that you cannot afford to pay for the college’s insurance in a lump sum. Ask what they have done for students on FA. This cannot be the first time this issue has come up.</p>

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<p>I would go with the NYU insurance, but it’s not a monthly thing (like almost every private insurance company). I have to pay one sum at the beginning of the semester. I do need to call and ask about it though. Thank you for the suggestion.</p>

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<p>When my kids had to get insurance at their colleges (because our insurance didn’t meet the standards), we found the college insurance was significantly cheaper and easier than anything else we could find. If you can pay the tuition, you can pay the lump sum–talk to the finance office.</p>

8

<p>Like dmd, we found that DS insurance via his college was superior to what we have. In our case, not cheaper but much better coverage. Dropping him from our plan, therefore, saved us pretty much exactly what we would pay for the college plan.</p>

<p>We checked, before we did this, that there would be ways for him to get health insurance post college, from our plan or another, in the event he didn’t have a job “with benefits” immediately post-college.</p>

<p>So check on rebate/savings from your current plan when you go off it. And as others have said, talk to the college (or the carrier) - even if you are not on finaid - about ways to finance the health insurance. I would be very surprised if there weren’t some way to pay monthly/quarterly. Might be slightly higher cost overall to do this.</p>

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<p>I also found that purchasing the school’s health plan was a better deal than our self-insured program, on many levels. The school’s done the research, they’ve found a carrier that won’t hem and haw on claims, and so forth. I just included the fee in the “tuition bill-pay” online program (10 equal installments). Doesn’t NYU offer a bill pay program? They must. I know of no school that doesn’t.</p>

10

<p>The tuition pay bill thing started in June and ends in sept. If i were to sign up, i would have to pay the application fee plus the months that have already passed. So that option doesn’t really make much sense.</p>

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<p>Mackie, we were in a similar situation. I wasn’t happy with the coverage that my health insurance through my job would give an out-of-state college student. (I changed jobs a few months before she started college). Also, there was no “single parent with one child” option–to add her, I’d have to pay for family coverage. The student coverage through the school was terrific–but even more expensive than adding my employer’s family plan.</p>

<p>We went to <a href=“http://www.ehealthinsurance.com%5B/url%5D”>www.ehealthinsurance.com</a> for quotes and to compare plans. If you go there, be prepared to spend a loooong time slogging through it all, but they do have an automated health plan advisor that asks you what’s important to you and makes recommendations. </p>

<p>In our case, I was looking for a network or PPO that would have providers in both states. Because my D. almost never gets sick or injured and can go to the student health center for free for routine things, I was willing to accept a plan with a high deductable, high copays, and about an 80/20 breakdown for what insurance would pay for vs. her out-of-pocket. But I had a real concern about protecting her and her credit in case of something extraordinary happening, so I also wanted a plan that had a relatively low ceiling on the maximum she would have to pay out-of-pocket in a year, and a high per-lifetime benefit from the insurance company. The premium ended up being half what I would have paid to add her to my employer’s plan. </p>

<p>It’s month to month. They only bill you a month at a time and if you find something you like better, you can cancel on 10 days notice. Since it’s not tied to student status, she’ll be able to keep it after she graduates till she eventually can get insurance through a job. </p>

<p>A Point-of-Service plan would have had cheaper premiums than what we got and allows you to go to any doctor, at least in the US–but it looked like the paperwork for filing claims, etc., could be a real hassle. I just didn’t want her to have to deal with that if she got sick. </p>

<p>I also looked at some “student insurance” plans on other sites. They were the opposite–co-pays and deductables were low, but so was the amount the insurance would cover. One only covered up to 100,000 a year. I’d rather know that her dad and I are on the hook for more each year for routine things, but that if something catastrophic happens, it won’t ruin her financially. Dependent student or no, 18 is 18 as far as legal responsibility for medical bills is concerned, as far as I know.</p>

<p>She’s never had to use her insurance since she went to college, so I can’t tell you much about how the plan works except on paper. It’s only good in the US though, so you’ll need travel medical insurance for study abroad.</p>

<p>It takes 2-4 weeks for an application to be processed, so if you go this route, the sooner you start the better. </p>

<p>(You can also go the old fashioned route and go through the Yellow Pages to find an independent insurance agent who handles health insurance, and have a human with experience help guide you through it).</p>

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<p>"My insurance carrier is peachcare "</p>

<p>This appears to be a special state program, not really an insurance carrier. Your coverage will end no matter what on your 19th birthday. From reading up on the program it is not designed to operate outside of the state unless an emergency occurs. </p>

<p>You would be best served by starting with your state’s insurance commissioner’s website and reviewing approved insurance plans for your state. This is important as they will list carriers that are allowed to legally do business in your state. When people buy unauthorized companies products they are on their own if there’s a problem. </p>

<p>Be aware everyone, this is important, especially when buying on the internet, make sure the product works (approved) in your state. That means the carrier has provided finanicals and product information for review to the state. If it’s not approved and has been around awhile (new products take a while to get approved), it is usually an indicator of some flaw in the company or product that your state office feels could be of harm to the consumer (you). People can sell you anything and accept your premiums, if you don’t check, they aren’t going to tell you…and often you won’t know until that big claim rolls around and they don’t pay… be aware.</p>

<p>Anyway, my suggestion would be to purchase a high deductible plan that will give you coverage for anything big.That should allow you to opt out. For your situation, it might make sense to purchase the school’s coverage so you can go for anything small as well. Yes, it’s going to cost more, but that can’t be helped. </p>

<p>NY has some of the strongest insurance laws in the country, and strongest usually means a cost. The school is probably complying with the home state rules. Good luck.</p>

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<p>Mackie45 you wrote: The tuition pay bill thing started in June and ends in sept. If i were to sign up, i would have to pay the application fee plus the months that have already passed. So that option doesn’t really make much sense.</p>

<p>Of course it does. That’s only 1 month that needs to be made up. Not 3 or 4.</p>

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<p>I don’t know if the A.M. Best rankings mean much but they give the insurance I bought online an A-/Excellent.</p>

<p>(Whew: also licensed to do business in both states, this one and the one where she’s in school. Thanks for the tip, Opie.)</p>

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<p>Mackie-
Ooh. Tough situation. Opie is right in his post above. You might consider purchasing an inexpenxive personal HMO policy that would have converage in NY. If Kaiser has coverage in NY, that would be a good way to go,and you should, if you have no major existing health concerns, be able to get a Kaiser personal policy very inexpensively. Good luck</p>

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<p>Conyat, </p>

<p>not a problem. In my state not only can you look up information about carriers and complaints, you can do so with agents too. Every state has it’s own set of insurance rules and regs, some (like NY) are very good in the sense they work to protect the consumer. Sometimes that results in higher costs, but really with insurance you rarely see a rip off that charges more than the other choices, usually it’s way under. </p>

<p>The other thing to be aware of is via the internet, you’ll deal more often with boiler room groups that are just signing people up without regard to the fit.
“Are you licensed for my state?” is always a fair question. If no, be careful.</p>

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<p>Well, you’ve convinced me that whatever the hazards of buying insurance over the internet, I ended up with a very good company and a plan we’re comfortable with.</p>

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<p>Thank you for all of the tips. I think i’ll try some online places and i will definately ask the questions opie suggested. =)</p>

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<p>Remember most of all licensed agent for your state and look it up before you commit. There are boiler room operations out there that aren’t licensed (regulated) for insurance in the same way for penny stocks. The person you deal with doesn’t have to be in your state, but they have to be licensed and should have a full knowledge of products to compare.</p>

<p>Also be aware of agents who put down other carriers too much. There aren’t reasons to bad mouth any approved products. Some just fit better than others. If the agent spends alot of time bad mouthing the competition be aware of what’s “behind the curtain”. Usually the more bad mouthing, the weaker his product is. You should compare summaries. Prices reflect services offered. If something is waay cheaper than the others compared, it will be becuase of plan differences. </p>

<p>Do not expect to pay $100 for one plan and expect coverage to be the same as other plans that cost $200. It’s not a vaccum they work in, all carriers know what the other charges for plans. </p>

<p>What you have to decide is how much “risk” you want to take on. By accepting more “risk”, your cost go down. Risk = self insure.</p>

<p>In other words a $100 deductible will cost far more than a $1000. Usually in upwards of 50% or greater cost. Actually I don’t think any carrier offers a $100 anymore.</p>

<p>Be aware of stop loss. That is when your contributions towards claims ends and you become 100% insured. When do you max out? at 2500, 5000,10000 or never. This is an internal area where you lower premium cost but increase the risk to yourself. I would avoid plans that never max out or don’t have a stop loss. Usually between 2500 and 5000 you’ll see a 5% reduction in overall cost.</p>

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<p>If you haven’t had much experience with private health insurance or knowledge of the different kinds of plans and coverages, I’d recommend using an independent insurance agent (who handles different carriers) rather than trying to pick a policy over the internet…unless you have a lot of time to do the research. </p>

<p>The Internet is a great tool, but sometimes there a lot of “noise.” It can be really hard to piece things together. You’ll be able to ask questions and get everyday explanations, and the broker can help you do costs/benefits analysis for your personal situation. Ask the same questions that Opie suggested, about whether the carrier is licensed in your state and NY, etc., that you would if dealing over the internet (and about the AM Best ratings). You can even go to more than one broker to compare.</p>

<p>It may still take time to get your application approved (just like if you apply online) so the sooner the better. Since you have other insurance, you can delay your coverage start till the beginning of school if you absolutely need to minimize your back-to-school expenses.</p>