I got a letter from my insurance company that informed me that my health insurance plan had been discontinued. The first thing I did was contact my insurance broker to find out what advice she would have about what I should do. She had some good suggestions.
At this moment, it is difficult for me to think of a situation more frustrating than having my health insurance company send me a letter telling me that they have decided to “discontinue” my health plan a few months after selling it to me. It is making me feel as though being able to pay the premiums is not enough to ensure that I will have health insurance coverage. That’s incredibly unfair!
If you ever end up in this type of situation, I highly recommend that you speak with an insurance broker. For me, this was easy, because I initially purchased my health insurance plan with the assistance of an insurance broker. Part of the job of an insurance broker includes helping a person with issues that have to do with the insurance plan that the broker helped the person to find.
My insurance broker had some good advice for me. I sent her an email where I asked her questions about what I should do. Would it be better for me to stay in the ClearProtection Plus 1000 policy that was had been discontinued? Should I, instead, switch to either the CoreGuard Plus 750 plan or the CoreGuard Plus 1500 plan that Anthem Blue Cross is strongly suggesting I switch to? Would it be better to just find another insurance company?
Overall, the answer seems to be to stay with the ClearProtection Plus 1000 plan (and hope that Anthem Blue Cross doesn’t raise the premiums beyond what I can afford to pay). She assures me that, at this time, the plan benefits are not changing, and the premiums are not changing, “until and unless they change them”. It is a bit of a gamble, but, seems to be the best bet.
She also noted that she “would really hesitate to suggest” that I switch to either of the CoreGuard plans that Anthem Blue Cross is suggesting I switch to. It is incredibly helpful to have the advice of an insurance broker, who knows more than I do about all of these plans. If I didn’t have her help, I might have come to the conclusion that I should switch to the plans that Anthem is pushing me towards. Now, I see that would not have been the best thing for me to do.
Image by AJ Cann on Flickr