Applying for Health Insurance

Applying for health insurance is easy enough once you have all the relevant information on hand. A little bit of research will give you all the required details like comparative prices of the various benefits available by the different health insurance agencies. Application can be done on or off line or even through group plans. Keep handy your documents regarding the latest policy, contact details of your doctors and details of the most recent checkup/visits as this would need to go into your application form.

Now if you are applying through your employer or enrolling as per company policies, you have to wait till the company’s open enrollment period comes up and the application process can begin but if you are a new recruit then it generally happens that most companies enroll everyone without checking for pre-existing conditions and present state of health etc.

The enrollment form would require details like social security numbers, addresses, and all relevant personal details of dependants like names, ages, date of birth and their social security numbers along with the designation of the primary insured, date of employment, type of health cover wanted etc. They would also need information about any earlier health insurance that you may have had along with the insurance company name and policy number. Generally a medical examination is not required and finally the application goes on to the benefits coordinator who completes the processing of your form.

If you are planning to apply for health insurance on your own, the process is fairly similar except that you may not have someone doing the actual processing of the paperwork. Most agencies send an agent to initiate a dialogue about the application process, help gather all the relevant information, co-ordinate medical examinations if any and collect the pre-payment amount. You need to be aware of the different policies and make an informed choice and the application process is quite easy.

In fact the very simplicity of it encourages people to apply online. Applications are available on a secure environment for many health insurance companies, fill in all the relevant details and submit it and the system does the rest. Again be aware of the various policies and be very clear as to what coverage you are looking for. But if you are uncomfortable with putting all your personal information on the Internet, then stick to the conventional method. Call for an agent and ensure that the entire deal is transparent and clearly understood by you. When it comes to paid insurance one can never be too cautious. It pays to do your research and make an informed decision.


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