Alright, you’ve got your numbers together and know what kind of policy and coverage you would prefer.
Now comes the part that could potentially be tricky: submitting the application. There are a couple of major things to keep in mind when doing this, and failing to do so could be costly for you and your family in your quest to secure the ideal health insurance option.
Make sure your application is complete and accurate
Holes in your application make things confusing.
The underwriter, or enrollment specialist, must ascertain if they information was omitted on purpose, accident, or did the applicant just not really care?
This makes more work for the underwriter, and in most cases could just make more work for you, as well. Any documentation or details not provided can delay your enrollment and ultimately close your application.
If your health insurance application does get closed, you will not necessarily be penalized or prevented from reapplying. If you’re applying for Critical Illness or Life Insurance, you will experience a more stringent underwriting process as described below.
Health Insurance Marketplace Applications
You’ll also want to make sure your Health Insurance Marketplace application is as accurate as possible.
There are a number of eligibility questions that will be verified with the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration and other federal entities. Your income sources and amounts, insurance information and citizenship details need to be confirmed.
Discrepancies can result in loss or reduction of any tax credits received, or even cancellation of your policy. Always be sure to submit your income and/or immigration verification documents to the Marketplace as soon as possible. That way, you can prove the Marketplace wrong if you did provide accurate information and the exchange claims you did not.
Let’s assume you omitted or left out some details on your application and the underwriter approves it still.
If details of this omission (accidental, honest, or dishonest) come to light for your insurance company, beware of having your policy suddenly dropped and the possibility of being held financially responsible for any benefits you potentially could have received already.
Definitely not something to kid around about. Take your time, do it the right way.
What to Say During the Phone Interview
Many health insurance companies still have very comprehensive phone interrogations errr… I mean interviews.
Remember the only way a health insurance company can know your background is through your MIB records, medical records and prescription history, the rest as I often say is like gays in the military, “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
To reiterate, this process applies most often to life insurance or critical illness applications, and will not be used for on or off exchange individual major medical.
Being afraid you will get rejected for a pre-existing condition
If there is a doubt in your mind about being rejected because of a previous condition, don’t apply on your own!
Contact (insert link to contact page) one of our insurance agents and we should be able to guide you in the right direction.
After your application has been submitted, your information will be referenced against the medical information bureau. The Medical Information Bureau is an agency that provides background information to insurance companies about individual applicants past ailments or conditions. It is also likely you will receive a verification phone call about your application.
If everything checks out till this point, it could still take 3 to 4 weeks to process.
Health Insurance Application = Submitted. Now What?
After several weeks, the wait is over!
You will hear one of four responses about your ancillary health or life insurance application.
Hopefully it’s music to your ears when they say, “APPROVED”. If for some reason that is not the case, there are three other responses they could have given you.
- Approved but……. Maybe there were some eyebrows raised about a specific health issue. They still would like to accept your application, but they are proposing to raise the rate of your premium if you accept their offer.
- Denied…..Definitely not good news. This will show up on your Medical Insurance Bureau reports for the rest of your life, and will make your quest in getting health insurance particularly difficult in the future.
- Approved with an exclusionary rider………..This could take place if the company thought you were worthy of getting approved, but disliked one of your conditions on your application. It would exclude coverage on one of your pre-existing medical conditions.
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