Medicare Supplements have benefits that are federally controlled by our government. This means that if an insurance company wants to sell a medicare supplement Plan G, that policy must have an exact set of benefits that matches the government standard. The neat thing about this is that the Plan G you might buy from Blue Cross or Humana has benefits that exactly match those of the Plan G sold by Mutual of Omaha or Anthem. The rates will differ among companies based on your sex, age, and zip code, but a Plan G is a Plan G, regardless of where you purchased it. This amazingly simple government step of standardizing the insurance benefits allowed consumers like you and me to be able to watch for competitive rates and purchase with confidence, knowing just what we will get in this medigap policy.
Let’s just say you want to get a Texas Medicare Supplement. Texas is a big state, with so many different metropolitan and rural areas, so purchasing a Texas Medicare supplement will mean that you’ll need to research over 25 different companies to see who offers the best pricing. But, price shouldn’t be the only consideration, so keep these facts in mind as you begin your search.
Insurance carriers have a rate trends history. All medicare supplements have rate increases every now and then. This is normal to keep up with the skyrocketing costs of medical inflation. In fact, insurance companies have entire departments filled with actuaries, whose job it is to monitor rate trends in this industry and estimate their future anticipated losses. They’ll review the loss ratios for the last few years, and then declare how much the premium should be adjusted so that they can keep up with medical claims and remain financially solid. You should ask for their rate history over the last four years. If a company has a history of abnormally high rate increases, then they could be in the habit of penetrating new areas with their policies priced at exceptionally low premiums to entice clients, but the issue with this is that their losses then can sometimes be greater than the amount of insurance premiums they are taking in. When this occurs, you as the medigap policyholder can get socked with a big rate hike.
It is the objective of a good insurance agent to help you steer clear of this kind of situation. For every carrier you are considering, your broker will be able to show you the trend of the price increases during the past three to four years. Certain insurance carriers that have demonstrated really low rate trending often have slightly higher premiums, yet it will be well worth it over the long run to bypass upsetting letters in your mailbox telling you that your Medigap rate has climbed twenty-five percent.
An additional factor is financial strength. Medigap insurers are generally ascribed a financial rating by independent surveying companies like Weiss or Dun & Bradstreet. The financial grade will demonstrate the general capability or likelihood of the insurer to pay its various ongoing insurance obligations. While financial scores are very important for nearly any type of insurance, it is especially important when you consider that this policy will be covering your physical body. We rely on auto insurance to pay for the expenses of a wrecked vehicle following an accident; correspondingly we need to be able to lean on our medical insurance carrier to withstand a million dollar heart attack claim in stride. One suggestion is to seek insurance companies that have heavy stakes in life insurance policies. This insurance is a sort of insurance that commonly rakes in lots of money but does not often pay out nearly as many dollars in claims as it brings in, because the term of some life insurance policies end while the policyholder is still alive. This establishes a really strong company for your medicare supplement too.
A last piece of advice for any medicare supplement shopper is to realize that if you haven’t heard of a carrier before, that doesn’t mean that the carrier won’t be dependable. Only a few of the main health insurance companies sell group insurance policies to individuals under 65 while they are working and then also sell medicare supplements to people after age 65 as well. Scores of other insurance companies sell medigap plans, but they don’t play ball in the employer health insurance industry, so you won’t have heard mention of these carriers until you are in need of the health insurance they do offer: medigap policies. If you review these companies objectively, based on their financial ratings, their rate history and number of years in business, you will be pleased to find that several great carriers offer premiums that are often less than the larger name-brand companies. Be certain to look at each choice, and if the savings is significant and we already know the benefits are the same, you can sometimes save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year while still getting the same excellent coverage.