About Coral Gables Florida
In 1925, roughly simultaneous to the founding of Coral Gables, the city was selected as the home to the University of Miami, which was constructed that year on 240 acres of land just west of U.S. Route 1, approximately two miles south of downtown Coral Gables.
The City of Coral Gables is right in the middle of South Florida with easy access via US Highway 1 to any location in the state, including Florida's Keys.
Insurance tip #312
Choosing Coral Gables Health Insurance Plans
Making a wise decision on which Health Insurance Policy to buy may seem like a confusing task, but if you consider just these five most important items you and your Coral Gablesinsurance agent will both find that you are a Savvy Buyer! These items are your KEYS to picking a policy that's right for you:
- The Insurance Company's Rating
Ask your Coral Gables agent for the Company's A.M. Best rating. If the company is highly rated at this national rating registry, then the company will have literature showing their rating with an explanation of what it means. Choose only companies that have an A or A+ rating.
- The Insurance Company's Record of Complaints at your State Board of Insurance
Every large company will have some complaints. Avoid companies that have a high number of unresolved complaints. Ask your agent for the phone number for your State Board of Insurance. If he will not give it to you, this is a warning signal! You can also look up the number in any directory of your state's agencies. No matter what your agent says, CALL your State Board of Insurance and ask them for the record on any company you are considering.
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The Limits Shown On Your Health Insurance Quote
Check your quote to see if you are comfortable with the benefit levels. You can usually change several levels to fit your needs and budget. For example, a higher deductible will cost less each month. Also, many plans give you a choice to split your medical bills with the Insurance Company either 50/50 or 80/20 (with them paying 80%). Then they will have an amount (your stop loss) where they will take over at paying 100% of your covered bills for the remainder of the year. These deductibles and other levels start over every year in most plans. Some plans, though, have a "per cause" deductible. Such a deductible means that you will be responsible for bills up to that deductible for each accident or illness. Make sure you are aware of this distinction, so you can choose a plan that's right for YOU!
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The Limits Revealed Within The Policy
Ask your insurance agent for a sample policy, and then check two sections: The Benefits and The Limitations and Exclusions. Many of your benefits are actually limited in the Benefits section. For example, diagnostic testing or outpatient treatment may be severely limited. These days, you could have a serious disease such as cancer, and never go into the hospital for it. You could rack up thousands of dollars in medical bills for the diagnostic and follow-up lab tests and MRIs, and then have surgery, chemo, or radiation therapy all on an outpatient basis.
Other items that may be limited are your hospital room rate and intensive care. Your hospital room rate should be at least average semi-private and your intensive care benefit should NOT be tied to your room rate, but should, instead, be covered as whatever is an average ICU rate for the area of the hospital, also. Some policies limit the ICU benefit to 3 times the regular room rate, when ICU can cost you 10 or 20 times the room rate each day. A short hospital stay with a limit like this in your policy can cost you literally thousands of dollars. A long hospital stay with a limit like this in your policy could drive you into bankruptcy. Even if your policy says it takes over at 100% after $5,000 of covered medical bills, the important term here is "covered" medical bills. If the policy only pays three times the room rate for ICU, then the rest of the ICU bill is considered an "uncovered" charge!
Look out for these types of limits!
Also, be sure to check the Pre-Existing Conditions Limitation if you already have any medical conditions, and ask your agent if the Company will be excluding your conditions permanently on your policy.
- Pay the Insurance Company, Not the Agent, & Follow Up!
And lastly, make your check payable to the Insurance Company, and then follow up to make sure it was received. When you get your policy, check the Schedule of Benefits to verify you got the coverage you ordered, and then check to see if any special Amendments were added to your policy to exclude any of your conditions. If an Amendment exists, these conditions will always be excluded from this policy, even after the Pre-Existing Conditions Limitation expires.
Following these five tips will help you choose a health insurance policy which will protect you from catastrophic medical bills. You may think, "Isn't that what any health insurance policy is for?" Yes, that is the reason for buying any health insurance policy, but, unfortunately, many policies fall short of actually providing this protection! Be sure to take the time to choose wisely when it comes to your health insurance!
Voluntary Payroll Deductions
A study conducted by Chambers of Commerce in the year 2000 reveals that in the year 1999 employer has paid around 36.8 % more above the regular wages paid to the employee. This extra payment by employer utilized towards providing benefits like health coverage, life coverage, and holiday paid leave, pensions and many more. In other word if this benefits are added in to the employee.s paycheck than every 1-dollar of employee.s paycheck is worth 1.39 dollar. These benefits are like gifting employee with the .gift voucher..
The same study also revealed that out of 3 employees only one employee has some idea of this .gift voucher.. In short majority of American employees has no idea about how much money it would be, if the benefits given by them from employer were cashed. Every year the payment issued by the employer so that employee enjoys the different benefits is increases as the inflation rises. But irony is that most of the employees do not perceive this. Due to this, recently there grows a trend of cutting costs on employee.s benefits. But they have to maintain some basic benefits in order to retain the good employees.
Voluntary Payroll Deduction program
Recently VPD or Voluntary Payroll Deduction program becomes much popular among the employer specially who is searching some way to cut the benefit of employee without raising un due alarm. Under the Voluntary Payroll Deduction program, employees can buy individual insurance plans with the facility of deducting the premiums directly from their payroll. The employees very well perceive this type of benefit. Since employees also pay for this type of insurance it is often called Individual-employee- owned or paid Insurance.
The role of employer is timely sending the premiums to respective health insurance company and deducts the premium amount from the employee.s salary. In short it is administer work that does not require any extra attention or money. This program is not compulsory. Employees may or may not participate in the Voluntary Payroll Deduction program.
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