California health
insurance
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Billing OptionsBilling options for Individual health insurance
With most major health carriers in
California, you have multiple billing options to
pay your premium. The premium is the monthly
amount you pay the carrier to keep your policy
in effect.
Making sure your premium is paid is extremely
important with Individual Family coverage as
your health policy can terminate if it is not
received. Health insurance by definition is a
pre-pay policy which means that you are paying
for an upcoming period.
For this reason, non-payment will not affect
your credit but it will cancel out the policy.
There is typically a grace period for payment of
individual premium but it's best not to pay
late.
If your health has changed, you may not be
able to re-qualify for coverage when you go
through medical underwriter. Let's look at the
various billing options on the market and
discuss the advantages and disadvantages of
each.
Health insurance billing by mail
This is the traditional way to pay your
health insurance policy.
You receive a bill by mail and pay it
accordingly. The bill usually comes mid-month
prior to the period you are paying.
For example, the a billing for the period of
October might arrive mid-September. You usually
have multiple billing periods to choose from.
Some carriers will offer monthly, bi-monthly, or
quarterly billings.
Some carriers such as Anthem Blue Cross only
offer bi-monthly and quarterly billings. Blue
Cross has also instated a charge for the billing
option of $2. This is probably a trend the other
carriers will follow as they are trying to
reduce costs in any way possible as health
insurance rates continue to increase. Some
people like to see the billing and have more
control but this billing type is also subject to
problems if mail is delayed or addresses change.
You can have the bill go to a different
address than the actual subscriber's address.
This is typical with parents paying for
children's coverage or PO boxes since the
subscriber address must be a hard street
address. You can change your billing address any
time during the year. Some of the carriers allow
an online health application to proceed without
the actual first check (made to carrier) being
in house. Once approved, the carrier's generate
a bill which must be paid to put the policy
in-force.
Credit Card billing option for Individual
health insurance
This is a newer billing type that has become
very popular.
You can either choose to use the credit card
option for just the first payment along with the
application or on a reoccurring basis. Having
the first payment by credit card allows the
application to process with no mail required.
It can be done online or by fax. Some
carriers allow you to choose or at least narrow
the date of the credit card pull. The initial
pull is usually at the time of application (can
be refunded if you choose not to accept the
policy) or a few business days after approval.
Credit card pulls are usually done monthly
and the default date is the first few days of
the month. The nice part about the credit card
option is that it is automated and there is less
chance of missing a health insurance payment and
jeopardizing your policy.
You can always change to another billing type
during the year but credit card is advisable as
we have seen the issues related to people
missing bills and losing their coverage with no
options to re-qualify.
Automatic checking deduction option for
individual family health plan
Automatic deductions are similar to the
credit card option in that is automated and
transacted on a monthly basis. Many of the same
options such as choice of date pulled, monthly
basis, and initial handling are similar to
credit card. You will need to submit a VOIDed
check with the application or with the form to
initiate the withdrawal.
You can run your
California
health plan quote here
to view rates and plans side by side from the major carriers...Free.
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