Health Insurance Quote Woes When Redundant

Each day that passes we feel the recession more. We see more friends being laid off and even more being short-listed for “voluntary retrenchment”. Research by the government has indicated that some 2 million workers have already lost their jobs in the light of the previous credit crunch and the recession fall-out. The government estimates that another 4 million workers will lose their jobs before the economy makes a turn for the better. In view of these terrible stats, it’s only normal for people to get anxious about their future.

For most people, next to the loss of income from the redundancy, their biggest concern will be the loss of health insurance coverage. This is one of the main concerns of many employees now that the cloud of redundancy has started rolling in and your job is not as secure as it once was. Even if you are made redundant with appropriate parachute payouts, it is impossible to live on that money for a long time, you will most probably lose the important health coverage that your company provides you and your family too.

For those who are fortunate enough to be signed up with a health insurance provider that allows you to transfer your previous job based health insurance coverage to a policy that you can pay privately, it may yet be too soon to count your blessings. The law that allowed for this continuation of health insurance coverage is called the COBRA, short for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act which was a law passed in 1986 to ensure continued health benefits even if an employee is laid off.

For most people, this would seem like a very good thing. After all, if you are laid off this will grant you a bit more time to go search around for new jobs and spare you from the worry of the health insurance needs of your family right? On the surface it seems like a good thing, this however normally dissipates when you realize the amount of money that you have to pay just to keep this COBRA enabled health insurance going. In almost all cases, the COBRA enabled health insurance is always more expensive than a similar health insurance quote provided by an outside provider. It is not uncommon to hear that ex employees have to pay up to 2-3 times what they are used to just to maintain their current health insurance policy coverage.

Most of the time if you leave your job with your COBRA enabled health insurance plan, it is almost mandatory to get another health insurance quote just so you can actually afford health insurance coverage. The shocking this is that there are people who actually think they should be happy to stick to their COBRA enabled health insurance plans despite the high charges. The choice of health insurance provider is yours and it is your responsibility to get the best quote and coverage that you can.

There is no harm in getting another health insurance quote from another provider. There is no point in you accepting coverage that is simply too expensive for you. You must take the effort to drill down your health policy to each coverage item and see the actual costs of that coverage in comparison to the one that you receive from your new quote. You have to compare apples with apples in order to get the real determination of which coverage better suits your needs.

It is important to understand why the job provided health insurance is more expensive compared to quotes received from outside health insurance providers. Job provided health insurance is normally very comprehensive. It covers almost every single coverage item as it is a blanket coverage for all the company’s employees, male, female, young and old. At the very least you must make an effort to trim off the access coverage that you don’t need if you intend to keep your COBRA enabled coverage. There will be many coverage items that simply don’t apply to you. Keeping those coverage items will be a severe waste of money.

The point that we are trying to put forward is that the availability of health insurance even if you are made redundant isn’t the issue. You will always have health insurance should you need it. You time will be better served if you put your energy towards looking for a new job and also searching for other health insurance quotes which are mo economical for you.

Information relating to health insurance quotes and anything relating to health insurance, please visit us at http://www.health-insurance.be.