Affordable Health Insurance Plans: No Joke

Group plans offer the best rates. If you’re not in a group plan, consider joining a group. No kidding. If you’re over 50, AARP has group insurance plans you can join. Some service and charitable organizations have health plans. Some special interest groups have health plans. Check them out. But check them out carefully. If the plan is cheap but the providers are too far away to be practical, or too few to have much choice of provider, or has too many conditions it won’t cover, you haven’t really accomplished anything.

If you can’t get coverage any other way, you can always buy a policy on your own. Call your local library and ask the reference librarian if they have a copy of the Weiss Ratings’ Guide to Life, Health and Annuity Insurers. They should have it in the reference section, if your library is big enough to have one. If they don’t, ask if they will order one. If you need to, keep calling around until you find a library that has one.

Go to the library (you can’t check it out—it’s reference only) and find the section in the Weiss Guide of insurance providers licensed in your state. They do not have to headquartered or even have a facility in your state but they have to be licensed to do business there. The insurance companies will be in alphabetical order by letter grade. An A+ means exactly what you think it does. In another part of the book are more details on those companies. They are also alphabetical so it’s a good idea to have the first list to refer to. The book also details how a letter grade determination is made. The alphabetical listing is where you will find contact information as well as a simple graph showing five years of company fiscal history. The book is extremely easy to use and self explanatory.

If your library doesn’t have the Weiss book, it may have a Moody’s a Standard & Poor, or some other rating book. Tell the reference librarian you are evaluating insurance companies and she will be able to point out exactly where the books are that you need. Separate books will use different ratings categories, just look up the highest rated companies and make sure the reference you are using is the latest one available. Choose the companies you want to deal with, then contact the companies and ask for a quote. You will be asked a lot of questions before anyone will give you a quote. Insurance rates are variable, depending on a lot of factors, one of which is your credit rating. And yes, if you have mediocre or poor credit, your insurance is going to cost more.

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