StarBar Organics

There are several things that are considered when your health insurance rate is being calculated. We’ll look at a number of them with the view to helping you make adjustments that will help you get better rates for superior coverage…

1. The older you are the higher your rate will be. Younger persons have better resistance to many health conditions. Furthermore, as people age they become frailer and more susceptible to certain diseases.

2. Women generally require more health care than men. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Apart from the general stress of life (which everyone experiences) women have the added privilege of child birth and the attendant challenges. Furthermore, by the very nature of the female sex, they are more susceptible to certain diseases. Because of this a woman will pay more than a man given a similar profile.

3. There are occupations that are generally considered hazardous. Members of such professions will generally get higher rates. You can’t work in a nuclear plant, for example, and expect to pay the same rates with the clerk at the local grocery.

4. How healthy or otherwise you’ve been in the past is an indication (theoretically) of how often you might need health care in the future. A person who’s been treated for serious health conditions in the past will pay more than someone who has never had a major health crisis.

5. Smokers, heavy drinkers and abusers of prescription drugs will pay a lot more than people who avoid all these.

6. There are many other factors that insurers use to determine your rate. However, it’s interesting to note that different insurers have different loss histories and experience in underwriting prospects. These shape how they bill profiles.

This means that even though the same factors are used, different insurers will have different weightings for each of these factors. The result: A huge disparity in rates from one health insurance provider to the other.

While you should make adjustments (where they are possible) to get the best rates, you have to get and compare health insurance quotes from very many reputable insurers. That way you can take advantage of the disparity in rates among them.

By: Chimezirim Chinecherem Odimba

About the Author:

Caffeinated Content