By Scott Cooper

Finding health insurance coverage for the individual residing in Florida should begin with a visit to Florida Insurance Department’’s website so that health insurance coverage for individuals can be evaluated. The Florida Insurance Department will provide a list of all insurers licensed in the state who conduct individual health insurance.

Once you have obtained this information, you can contact the insurers directly to get more information on their plans. Be sure to evaluate several key factors to ensure you are getting the best coverage with the widest network of providers at the most affordable price.

Some things to look for when evaluating your individual health plan are to compare the deductible, physician services co-payments, out of pocket maximums, preventive health care and prescriptions co-payments. When comparing these factors, be sure to consider how each compares with the insurers from whom you are getting quotes.

Please remember that you can be turned down for coverage by health insurers in the State of Florida due to your health status. Health conditions such as diabetes, heart conditions, cancer and other serious health risks may result in the health insurers declining the applicant coverage.

Ask friends and family who they have health insurance through and how they feel the company has treated them. Make sure that claims payments and enrollment are a relatively easy process to handle. You will not want to start paying premiums and then get poor service.

Health insurance coverage for the individual in Florida may be reasonably priced if you purchase a high deductible health plan. But do not be surprised if you are covering a family and purchasing a low deductible plan, such as a $500 deductible plan, to pay over $750 per month.

If you cannot get health insurance due to your health status, The State of Florida has a high risk pool that is periodically opened up to new members. Check with the Insurance Department. If you can elect to continue coverage through an employer via COBRA, I would recommend that you do this before pursuing an individual policy. COBRA continuation is right you have if you leave an employer with more than 20 employees.

Once you get your insurance policy in place, be sure to reevaluate the marketplace the next year before your renewal. You should expect to get at least a 10% increase during 2007 or 2008. Health insurance is an expensive and volatile product but one that you should not go without. So go to the Florida Department of Insurance to get basic health insurance information and ensure that you receive several quotes so that you can compare the plans of these insurers.

About The Author

Scott is a partner in American Health Advocate(http://www.americanhealthadvocate.com) based in Westerville, Ohio. Scott has an MBA from Franklin University with a health care emphasis. Scott has worked with over 6,000 employers in helping them with their health insurance options.

By Scott Cooper

Health Insurance policies cost and rating varies by state and by policy type. Individual policies are rated according to state guidelines overseen by each state’’s Department of Insurance. Individuals have more challenges to get coverage than ever. Health insurers are able to exclude conditions or totally deny coverage to individuals with prohibitive risks. For this reason, individuals pursuing coverage should not cancel a group policy until they have received written confirmation that the individual policy is in-force.

Many states have high risk pools that allow individuals who might otherwise be unable to get coverage to do so via the high risk pool. In states where there is not high risk pool the situation is much more difficult to get coverage. Health insurance rating or underwriting will allow health insurers to deny coverage. Therefore, individuals with a serious health condition will be precluded from getting coverage and may have to turn to public open enrollment through a health insurer to obtain coverage. But this path is an expensive one. Public open enrollment policies can cost over a $1,000 per month for single coverage and $3,000 per month for family coverage.

Health insurance for employers is rated differently than individual policies. In accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and state laws, employers who contribute towards health coverage and have enough employees participate must be guaranteed coverage. These laws are for employers with between 2-50 employees. Pricing can vary however and an employer with no health conditions will be able to get cheaper coverage than an employer with a more serious list of health conditions.

The rating of health insurance is a complex situation with variances occurring by state and by the type of coverage one is seeking. If individuals or employers want to get more information on what is available in their state, they should visit the Department of Insurance website to begin their information quest. Typically these websites provide ample information to learn the basics of what the state laws entail. In addition, all insurers are generally listed with information about receiving coverage. Health insurance is a complex industry with differences between all 50 states.

HIPAA protects consumers when it comes to egregious rating practices by health insurers. If you have coverage and pursue another policy and are accepted, health insurers cannot impose a preexisting condition limitation as long as you have not had a 63 day gap in coverage. So don”t cancel your policy until you have proof of coverage from your new policy.

About The Author

Scott is a partner in American Health Advocate(http://www.americanhealthadvocate.com) based in Westerville, Ohio. Scott has an MBA from Franklin University with a health care emphasis. Scott has worked with over 6,000 employers in helping them with their health insurance options.

By steven smith

Car leasing may be a good option for those individuals or companies that want to have a new car but want to save some of the money it costs in full car ownership. Car leasing is a way to rent a car over a specified period of time. The car is not owned by the person or company leasing it at any point and at the end of the lease, the car is returned to the dealership or the car leasing company.

There is a deposit associated with car leasing. This initial deposit is non-refundable and is simply a way for the leasing company to protect themselves. After the initial deposit, the person or company leasing the car will pay a monthly amount that has been agreed upon by both the individual and the car leasing company. The term of the lease is usually approximately two or three years however, it is possible to lease a car for a year or even less.

Leasing a car is not the same as taking out a car loan. The largest payment that is required is the initial deposit and that is usually only about one, two or three months total of the monthly lease payments. This allows the person or company leasing to keep their money in a high interest bank account and to simply make the lease payments as part of their monthly living expenses. This can be especially useful to companies that want to lease a company vehicle. They can then take the payments out of operational expenses rather than out of capital expenses.

Because the lease will usually be less than three years, the car will always be covered under warranty and it will not require an MOT. This means that the person or company leasing the car will not need to worry about major repairs. The only things the person leasing the car needs to worry about are routine services such as oil changes and consumable items such as tires. These items are not usually a great expense during the first three years.

Another benefit to car leasing is that a person or company may change their cars every few years. This is beneficial for many reasons. The first reason being that the individual or company will not need to worry about their car breaking down all the time as it gets older and becoming more of a burden rather than an asset. Another benefit to leasing is that the individual or company will get a new car every two or three years.

Changing cars every few years is made so simple by car leasing. It is not necessary to try and sell the car before another car is obtained. Instead, one car is simply given back to the leasing company in exchange for a different car. It can be lots of fun to try out different cars all the time and will save the hassle of major repairs and grief.

There are so many advantages to car leasing it is easy to see why this is becoming so popular. An individual or company you can save a lot of money and hassle by simply leasing a car instead of buying it outright.

About The Author

My name is Steven Smith and I have researched car leasing http://www.buyyourcar.co.uk/Contract-Hire.aspx for the http://www.buyyourcar.co.uk/

By Pat Carpenter

In what seems like an overt effort to enrage Congress, President Bush has undermined the implementation of a bill expanding the Children’’s Health Insurance Program by issuing a set of guidelines virtually impossible for most states to meet.

With Congress in a month-long recess, Dennis G. Smith, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, sent a letter to state health officials this past Friday outlining Bush’’s new standards for the program, which impose what many believe are unattainable restrictions. States need to conform to the new rules within twelve months, warned the letter, or the administration “may pursue corrective action.”

That’’s as good as a threat to many state officials, who say that the new standards could devastate their efforts to insure more children currently going without health coverage.

“We are horrified at the new federal policy,” said Ann Clemency Kohler, deputy commissioner of human services in New Jersey. “[This will] cause havoc with our program and jeopardize coverage for thousands of children.”

Texas will be one of the states hardest hit. Twenty-five percent of its population is already going uninsured, and that doesn”t include the 2.2 million children covered by Medicaid or CHIP, as of 2006. The Texas Legislature just passed House Bill 109, which is designed to loosen restrictions on CHIP enrollment, and is set to take effect September 1st. Under new state guidelines, the program’’s enrollment period would extend to twelve months — versus the previous six — would eliminate the ninety-day waiting period for most children, and would ease certain asset restrictions. Bush’’s standards would override many of these changes. The healthcare communities in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, especially, are already in danger of collapse due to the large number of uninsured, or underinsured patients. Any more could devastate their facilities.

The Children’’s Health Insurance Program is designed to insure children in families whose incomes exceed Medicaid requirements, but who are still unable to afford private coverage. The program allows for families below the federal poverty line, $20,650 for a family of four, to obtain subsidized health insurance. However, this figure is far too low in many states to be realistic; many families surpassing this income still can not afford private health plans. Several states, therefore, applied for (and received) permission to extend coverage to families making up to four times the federal poverty income standards.

While that figure may seem outrageous to some, the basic cost of living in states like New Jersey, New York, and California is far higher than in the Midwest or Southwest, and federal poverty standards only reflect averages from the entire nation. New York grants coverage under CHIP to families making up to 250% of the federal poverty income standard, and is hoping to increase that to 400%. Pennsylvania extended its program to families earning up to 300% of federal poverty standards, and New Jersey expanded coverage for those families making up to 350%.

Under Bush’’s guidelines, states must enroll ninety-five percent of eligible children below 200% of the federal poverty level, in either Medicaid or CHIP, before expanding coverage to include higher-income families. The problem with this is not so much states” willingness to insure those children, but families” willingness, or capability, to enroll.

“No state in this nation has a participation rate of ninety-five percent,” said Deborah S. Bachrach, deputy commissioner in New York’’s State Health Department.

Cindy Mann, research professor at the Health Policy Institute of Georgetown University, agrees. “No state would ever achieve that level of participation under the president’’s budget proposals.” In other words, Bush has created a virtually unsurpassable barrier to achieving the Congressional goal of insuring more children under CHIP.

President Bush has been vocal from the start about his opposition to Congressional proposals to expand the program, believing such efforts are one step closer to providing universal health coverage. The President’’s proposal was to budget $30 billion over the next five years for the program, a fraction of the Democratic budget proposals and, many argue, a figure that wouldn”t even cover current levels of enrollment, let alone allow for any increase.

Under the new guidelines, Bush would also impose co-payments or premiums equivalent to the cost of private insurance and enforce long “waiting periods” for middle-income families. For those families whose incomes exceed 250% of federal poverty standards, “the state must establish a minimum of a one-year period of uninsurance for individuals.” Additionally, “the number of children in the target population insured through private employers [must] not [decrease] by more than two percentage points over the prior five-year period.”

Basically, that means children must go uninsured for one year before becoming eligible for CHIP, states must prove that families are not switching their children from private, employer-sponsored insurance to CHIP, in addition to proving that the state has not had such a trend for five years. By the time many states prove this, however, the five-year plan will be up.

“We have no evidence of a decline in employer-sponsored coverage resulting from CHIP,” said Kohler, who referenced the current three-month waiting period for families. For states like Texas, who want to eliminate the three-month waiting period for all but those who had private insurance within ninety days of their applications, these changes would prove devastating to efforts to expand CHIP coverage.

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was bolder in his response. “Contrary to objections, federal law allows states to set higher income limit Granting this expansion is essential to the health and well-being of children.”

Another solution is to urge private insurance companies to offer more affordable plans. The problem with the millions of Americans going without insurance is not so much lack of insurance itself, but what that lack of coverage means. Many often forgo needed treatments and tests, and facilities often go unreimbursed for services provided. Offering plans that would enable even one more in a family to actually afford coverage would ease many of these problems. For states like Texas, that could make all the difference.

Being aware of political issues affecting your health is an important part of taking care of yourself. Minding your health will certainly affect you as you age, and eventually your wallet.

About The Author

Pat Carpenter writes for Precedent Insurance Company. Precedent puts a new spin on health insurance. Learn more at http://www.precedent.com

By Steve Welker

Before you can start requesting quotes for life insurance online you first have to determine how much insurance it will take to cover your needs. Everyone’’s life insurance needs are different depending on their own unique personal situation. A young couple with several children will have drastically different needs than a middle aged man with no dependents.

One of the simplest methods for figuring your life insurance needs is to simply multiply your current annual earnings by the number of years you expect to work before you retire. For example if you are currently 35 years old and plan on retiring when you are 65 then you have 30 years left that you are expecting to be working. If you currently gross $50,000 a year then you would expect to make $1,500,000 or 1.5 million over your working life time.

To directly replace that means that you will need a life insurance policy worth 1.5 million. Now this may seem like an extremely high level of insurance but as you will see there are some factors that can increase the amount needed as well as factors that will reduce the amount needed.

The number we came up with using the above calculation is simply a starting point, now we will discuss some factors that can actually increase the amount you should purchase.

The first thing to consider are the costs involved with death, the most obvious one is the cost of an actual funeral. The cost of an average funeral today runs between $6,000 and $10,000, this is an added expense that you should figure in when determining how much insurance to purchase. The other possible death expenses you need to consider are medical bills, legal costs, and any applicable taxes.

The other thing to keep in mind are the other benefits of your job that will be lost when you pass. Probably the largest and most important one to consider is health insurance. If you health insurance is currently provided by your employer then you need to figure what it will cost your family to purchase health insurance somewhere else and add that to the amount of life insurance that you purchase. For example if you determine that a non-employer subsdized health insurance will cost your family $300 a month then you will need to add $108,000 ($300 X 12 months X 30 years) to the amount you need.

Now for some good news, we will discuss the factors that will reduce the amount of insurance you need to purchase. In most cases people will subtract the amount of money they have in any current savings plan from the amount of insurance they need to purchase. Probably the most significant factor is social security death benefits. If you have dependents and have paid enough into social security then they will be eligible to receive monthly payments. The amount of benefits that your dependents can receive is based on many factors to find out exactly what your family could receive you will need to contact the social security office. For our example we will use a total monthly benefit of $2000 for the family. In this case you take $2,000 X 12 months X 30 years for a total pay out of $720,000. Now if you take our original 1.5 million and add the $108,000 for health insurance and then subtract the social security benefit of $720,000 you end up with: $888,000. This has dropped the amount you need to purchase by nearly 50%.

This is just one method of figuring your life insurance needs, everyone will have different needs for life insurance.

About The Author

Steve Welker
Owner & Operator of http://www.term-life-4u.com

By John Hilaire

As adults we understand the need for a car and of course we have to pay insurance for that car. However when our kids get insurance they often end up paying much more than they have to, because car insurance companies assume that as teenagers they are going to be getting into a lot of trouble and causing a lot of accidents.

When it comes to getting car insurance for teenagers, you really want to be able to save as much money as possible. Although many people unfortunately do not realize it, there are quite a few different things that you can do in order to reduce the cost of car insurance for teenagers, of which will be discussed here.

Pay Your Premium in Full

One of the best ways to reduce the costs of car insurance for teenagers is to make sure that you pay your premium in full rather than in monthly installments, and this is because insurers will generally offer a discount on a lump sum, whereas they tend to add a surcharge fee for installments.

Shop Around

You always want to make sure that you shop around and compare and contrast between various different companies. You will be incredibly surprised at the differences in prices from one company to another, and so you should never just go with the first company that you buy, because if you take a bit of time and shop around you can find way better deals on car insurance for teenagers.

Keep an Eye on Vehicle Modifications

You want to make sure that you keep vehicle modifications to a minimum, because they will result in pushing up the price of the replacement value, and this is especially a problem with car insurance for teenagers because they always want to get all of the hottest new fancy accessories and extra fast cars.

These are the most major ways to reduce costs on car insurance for your teens, but there are many more as well, such as increasing your policy excess, restricting drivers on your policy to just one named other, installing security measures such as an alarm or immobilizer, parking your car in the driveway or in a garage when possible to reduce the likelihood of theft or damage, and aiming to drive as few miles as possible because the fewer miles you use up the cheaper your insurance will be.

If you keep all of these pointers in mind, then when it comes time to get car insurance for your own teenagers, you will be able to save yourself a great deal of money, something that every parent can truly appreciate.

About The Author

Get all the latest information about Car Insurance In Houston Texas from the only true source at http://www.carinsuranceinhoustontexas.com Be sure to check out our Car Insurance Newark pages.

By Scott Cooper

Why are employer health insurance costs rising so much?

Employers are facing tremendous pressure today to handle the increasing costs of health care insurance. The health care insurance industry is as volatile as has been seen in more than a decade. Many employers are wondering how they can afford to maintain their benefits.

This article discusses some of the many elements contributing to these escalating costs and provides some basic strategies for employers to explore to improve the cost and benefit offering.

Health insurers are essentially repackagers of the vast American health care system. Most employer policies include physician services, hospitalization, mental health and prescription benefits.

The health insurers consolidate our disparate system to give the consumer, through the employer, a conduit to health insurance. Herein lies a part of the challenge each insurer faces. Each part of the system is seeing its” component rise in pricing.

Prescription costs lead the way with an average trend factor of around 28%. Pharmacy costs have consistently risen in the 15 to 20% range each year for the last three years says Jeff Smith of Milliman’’s Columbus, Ohio office.

Every carrier is faced with the challenge of changing consumer-purchasing patterns. Pick up any magazine and see the many advertisements that attempt to compel the consumer to ask their physician for a prescription by name. The patient and not the physician now often facilitate the prescription purchase. This changing purchasing pattern is dramatically altering pricing. The average percentage increase for small employer health insurance is between 14-15%. The prescription component is heavily weighted in this amount.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) or the Katzenbaum Kennedy Bill passed in 1996 has impacted how health insurers handle much of their business. Group health products must be guaranteed issue to any small employer applicant who adequately meets contribution and participation guidelines.

But paramount for any group is the overall health status of the group. If your group has a combination of health conditions that will constitute a marginal risk, you may be rated-up prohibitively by the various insurance vendors. Work with an insurance agent to help facilitate this process so that all of your options are evaluated.

The following are among the many other reasons that costs for health insurance are increasing so dramatically:
-Technological advances in the health care industry.
-An aging U.S. Population.
-Physicians and hospitals are banning together to regain negotiating clout with insurance vendors.
-Legislation has created far more regulatory requirements.
-Overutilization of services by Americans.

As described in the opening paragraph, health insurers as private labelers of our health care system must identify strategies to help relieve the pressures of these various issues. Each of these items is impacting profitability and an unprofitable industry is not ideal for purchasers, consumers or vendors and also creates much of the volatility each employer is facing on their renewal.

Employers must begin to engage their employees in these cost increases. Employers can do the following things to increase awareness:
-Provide a detailed breakdown of the overall cost for insurance and then show the employee contribution on payroll information.
-Provide a payroll stuffer that demonstrates costs sharing or total employer cost.
-During annual review periods ensure the employee understands the costs of employee benefits and note that the employer portion represents effectively additional income.
-Increase the employee contribution while explaining the price increase.

Employers must analyze their costs regularly. Each year the company will renew with their insurance vendor. The employer has the opportunity two to three months prior to evaluate the marketplace. There are many factors that will determine if the company is able to improve price, product or network.

So what can an employer do to keep costs affordable? There are several steps that should be considered in attempting to keep costs affordable:
-Evaluate your plan each year and ensure pricing is competitive.
-Make annual plan changes to offset increases in pricing such as increasing copays or deductibles.
-Consider changing your drug card to engage your employees more in the cost.
-Evaluate employee contribution levels and consider changes in the percentage of overall costs that you provide.
-Discuss the affordability of a health care offering with your employees and leadership to ensure each knows the pressure of maintaining such an offering.

For many employers, the cost of offering health care is typically the in the top five highest costs behind costs such as payroll and raw materials. This high ranking in cost is growing exponentially and deserves the time to be carefully evaluated and assessed. As the consumer becomes more engaged in the complex purchasing decision for the employer, there may be a gradual enlightenment by some employees who will realize that everything has a price.

Take the time to have your benefits evaluated by a seasoned professional who will carefully analyze your company’’s benefit/price/risk equation for your health care offering so that you can optimize your position.

About The Author

Scott is a partner in American Health Advocate(http://www.americanhealthadvocate.com) based in Westerville, Ohio. Scott has an MBA from Franklin University with a health care emphasis. Scott has worked with over 6,000 employers in helping them with their health insurance options.

By Scott Cooper

Coordination of Benefits (COB) is a process by which two or more insurers who are insuring the same person for the same or similar group health coverage limit the total benefits received by the insured. The primary health care is the health insurance that will pay first on medical claims. Secondary health insurance will pay after the primary health insurance pays their portion. At no point will the combination of primary and secondary health insurance pay more than 100% of the claim that is being paid.

An employee is always primary on his or her own coverage. A spouse who is covered under a group plan would be secondary on the spouse’’s plan. Dependents are covered on a primary basis by the health plan of the spouse with the earliest birthday during a calendar year also known as the birthday rule.

For example, Jim Ventrusca has health insurance for himself through his employer and he is also covered under his wife’’s plan. If Jim, had gall bladder surgery that cost $5,000 his plan would be primary and pay after he has met his deductible. Let’’s say Jim’’s health plan had a $500 deductible and his wife’’s plan had a $250 deductible. Jim’’s primary health care plan by definition will pay after his $500 deductible is met. Once the coinsurance maximum is met then the secondary payor will pay on the claim.

In our example above, the surgery cost was $5,000 and Jim will pay the first $500 fully out of his pocket. The remainder is $4,500 which in our example is paid at 80% up to an annual out of pocket maximum of $2,500. So Jim is responsible for 20% of the remaining $4,500 or $900.

Jim’’s wife has a plan that he is secondary on and this plan will pay the $250 deductible that Jim has through his wife’’s employer. This secondary payment allows Jim to collect back a portion of his $500 claim. There may also be coordination of benefits on the coinsurance depending upon the plans that are being coordinated by the two health insurers involved. Coordination of benefits also occurs on other claims for dental, vision and other employee benefits offerings.

The definition of primary health care or health insurance is a complex transaction. Talk to your human resources department if you want more information on how coordination of benefits will work for your specific case. Understanding which plan is primary and how the coordination of benefits process works can save you money in the long run. However, you should always evaluate what the cost of insurance is for you. How much do you pay per pay period and how much does your spouse pay as well. You may be overspending relative to the potential payout from coordination of benefits.

About The Author

Scott is a partner in American Health Advocate(http://www.americanhealthadvocate.com) based in Westerville, Ohio. Scott has an MBA from Franklin University with a health care emphasis. Scott has worked with over 6,000 employers in helping them with their health insurance options.