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Monday, December 30, 2002Several insurers, including Medical Mutual, have recently started aggressively marketing their individual plans. They're rolling out plans that give people choices. Consumers get to decide, for instance, whether they want a higher premium with more benefits or a lower premium with more out-of-pocket charges. ``It's about consumerism,'' said Kevin Lauterjung, Medical Mutual's market leader for individual products. ``It's about offering choices to folks.'' ...Anthem recently expanded its individual health plan offerings and has seen enrollment jump 30 percent from last year. One insurance executive explains why companies like to deal with employers rather than individuals: Some insurers shy away from the individual market because it's less predictable and more labor intensive than group plans, which are typically offered through employers. ``It's much more predictable to enroll a group of 100 employees versus 100 individual contract holders,'' said Kevin Cavalier, vice president for sales and marketing for SummaCare in Akron. ``The margins skinny down a lot when you're working in the individual market place.'' But the individual market is showing some signs of growth, in part because more people are losing their jobs or choosing to open their own businesses. And if you’re healthy, those individual plans are cheaper than employer-based ones: For some people, individual plans can be more affordable than picking up the entire premium through COBRA, the law that protects people from losing their insurance when they lose their jobs. One example: A healthy 30-year-old man with a family of three or more can get an HMO plan without a deductible for $357 a month or $4,284 per year. By comparison, the average annual premium this year for an employer-sponsored health insurance is $7,957 for a family and $3,060 for a single person, according to Kaiser Family Foundation. The problem is, if you're not healthy, the premiums are very high, because there is no "risk pool" for an individual. posted by Sydney on 12/30/2002 08:18:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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