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If you’re looking for a less expensive and fully customizable health insurance plan, then a self insured health plan might be just what you need. Read on to learn more about what this type of plan is, and where you can find the best rates.

What is Self Insurance?

With a self insured or self-funded plan, an employer provides health care benefits for its employees. The employer pays claims directly instead of paying premiums to an insurance company.

Benefits of Self Insurance

About 55 million U.S. workers and their dependents receive health care through a self insurance plan. 60% of companies with 500 or more employees operate such a plan, which offers many benefits to employers:

* It can cost as much as 25% less than conventional health insurance policies
* It often offer tax benefits, including not having to pay a tax on monthly insurance premiums
* It can be customized with just the coverage you want
* Employers retain control over the plan’s reserves, allowing the company to invest the money

One danger associated with a self-funded plan is that catastrophic claims can be financially devastating to the company. To help manage the risk, companies often purchase stop-loss insurance to cover catastrophic claims. The stop-loss coverage begins covering the cost of the claim at a predetermined amount set by the company.

Finding a Self-Funded Health Plan

Employers typically work with insurance companies to design and administer a self-funded health plan. To find insurance companies that offer these policies, you can go to an insurance comparison website. On this website, you enter information about your insurance needs.

Once you submit your information, you will begin to receive quotes from insurance companies that can help you with your self-funded plan.

By Brian Stevens and Stacey Schifferdecker

Health insurance is very important to each and every one. Although there are several types of plans it is essential to select the right one for you. This might prove to be very tricky as you might not be able to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each and every plan while making a decision.

The broad categorization of health insurance is into two groups, the indemnity plan and the managed care plan. With indemnity plans, one can get a return of costs incurred towards medical treatment although only to a fixed limit. This plan also known as reimbursement plan will require the patient to bear a portion of the bill incurred whatever be the total charges. With this plan, the insurer needs to shell out a particular amount on a daily basis for some fixed number of days. Though the amount provided through the plan does not depend on the actual total costs, the amount paid is never above the expense incurred.

The other type of health insurance is the managed care plan. This again is further divided based on the type of policy taken and is categorized as HMOs, POSs, and PPOs. Many people opt for managed care plans over indemnity insurance plans as the flexibility provided by the former is much better. Here you get to pay a monthly fee regardless of the number of visits to the physician or hospital or you make a co-payment every time you make a visit and pay no fee every month. Also, you get more choices to select the type of care that you can afford. Depending on your abilities, you can choose to select the number of doctors in your network that you have the freedom to visit. Some types of managed care plans like the PPOs provide sponsorship programs that cover a huge network of hospitals and other medical services. This kind of insurance is usually provided by the employer where you work.

For an average person, it is best if he/ she sticks on to opting for a managed health care plan as the economics are far better. Although indemnity plans provide more options in allowing the insurer to visit any hospital or physician of their choice, it is more expensive. With managed health care plans, the patient is made to visit the hospital or physician within the network of the insuring company. This causes a problem only if you have to visit a specialist not within the network for any specific problem. A managed health care plan will however be more economical than indemnity plan but the latter is better in case of any emergency especially when you are away from town.

So, before you opt for any type of insurance plan covering your health, it is best to consider the advantages and drawbacks of each and every type of coverage available to you before making the right decision. Your choice should provide you the best kind of coverage at the lowest costs incurred by you.

By Dana B.Smith