When you create a monthly budget, your health insurance premium can take a big chuck out of what you have to pay other bills. However, if you treat health insurance as you do car insurance, you should look for ways to lower your premiums to have more money left over for other expenses.
If your employer does not pay for your health insurance, you should be able to find an affordable plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace. As part of the landmark Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Health Insurance Marketplace brings consumers and health insurance providers together in one convenient digital location. To be eligible to enroll in a health insurance plan offered via the Health Insurance Marketplace, you must be an American citizen, live in the United States, and not currently serving time in prison.
Regardless of whether you enroll in a health insurance plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace or you purchase a policy outside of the vast health insurance network, you should learn how to lower your monthly health insurance premiums.
Raise the Annual Deductible
The amount of your annual deductible represents the healthcare expenses you must pay before you receive health insurance benefits. For example, if your annual deductible is $1,000, the first $1,000 of healthcare expenses comes out of your pocket. One of the most effective strategies for lowering your monthly health insurance premiums involves raising your deductible. This is an especially helpful strategy for policyholders that have recently received a clean bill of health. Typically, if you are young and healthy, you can save money by increasing your annual deductible.
If you change your policy to a high-deductible plan, you should pair the new plan with a health savings account. Both you and your employer can contribute to a health savings account, which you use to pay for the healthcare expenses that come out of the higher annual deductible.
Take Care of Your Health
Preventive health care does not receive the attention it deserves. Taking care of your health represents the most influential way to control rapidly increasing healthcare costs. Adhering to a healthy lifestyle is much more than not smoking or consuming alcohol. It also means exercising regularly and following a healthy diet. Simply walking 30 minutes every day boosts the power of your cardiovascular system. Improving your health should decrease healthcare costs and to top it off, some health insurance policies reward policyholders that join a fitness center by lowering monthly premiums.
Pay More for Co-Insurance
After you reach the annual deductible on your health insurance policy, the co-insurance payment structure begins. One of the most common co-insurance ratios is 80/20, which means that after you use up the deductible, the insurance company pays 80 percent of healthcare costs. If you change the 80/20 co-insurance ratio to 70/30, you should see a drop in your monthly health insurance premium. As with increasing the deductible of your policy, you have to consider the pros and cons before you change the co-insurance ratio.
Conduct an Annual Audit of Your Healthcare Needs
You might miss out on premium savings by simply keeping the same health insurance plan each year. At the end of each year, conduct a thorough review of your health insurance policy and see if the coverage matches what you and your family require in terms of healthcare services. Perhaps one of your children has entered the workforce and receives some type of health insurance coverage provided by the employer. Other factors to assess include tax breaks, frequency of physician appointments, and whether a member of your family is expected to undergo an expensive medical procedure during the next year.
Take Advantage of Subsidies
The ACA includes a section that describes the income limits that permit policyholders to receive a subsidy. You qualify for a subsidy only by going through your state’s health insurance marketplace. Many of the health care subsidies offered by the ACA concern tax breaks. Access the ACA chart to determine whether you are eligible to receive a health insurance premium subsidy.
Save Money By Comparing Health Insurance Plans
Shopping for affordable health insurance that includes lower monthly premiums has gone digital. Before the Internet, consumers had to find affordable plans by letting their fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages. Now, you can comparison shop online in one place by using a highly-rated service such as Insurance Broker Hub.
As an independent insurance broker with access to every health insurance provider operating in the healthcare industry, Insurance Broker Hub eliminates the often frustrating and always time-consuming old-school way of shopping for affordable health insurance. You do not pay broker fees or have to pay extra for health insurance premiums to use the service. The no-obligation service can help you find a health insurance plan that matches your budget, as well as your healthcare needs.
Visit Insurance Broker Hub today to receive a free health insurance quote.
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