As you may have read, my husband was told that adding me to his work’s insurance plan was going to cost an additional $235 every two weeks. I was not happy. Well, I was on his paycheck this week…
My Health Insurance Premium
It wasn’t as bad as expected. Overall, I cost him an additional $165. I don’t know where they got the $235 estimate from. He went from paying $56.53 for everything to $221.76. That means I should cost about $4300 a year to insure instead of $6100. It still stings to pay so much for a mediocre plan, but it did end up being less than expected.
Options and Suggestions
In case you are looking for more options too, here were some suggestions from my readers about this:
Daniel from Sweating the Big Stuff said:
Did you look at other insurance options (searching through aggregators online)? I did a little research awhile back and found reasonable plans for about $100-$150 a month, so a pretty big discount over what it sounds like you currently have.
Shawanda from You Have More Than You Think said:
You may want to check out the National Association of Health Underwriters: http://www.nahu.org/consumer/findagent.cfm. It seems very difficult to navigate a health insurance policy without an expert holding your hand. It can’t hurt to speak to a professional.
Andrea from So Over Debt suggested:
I did some research before switching jobs and I was shocked at how cheaply I can insure myself through a private plan. I looked on Esurance, and I can get an Anthem plan with a $500 deductible for about $140 a month. The coverage is actually better than what I have right now through my employer.
Amanda from Forget Regret warned:
The big difficulty I found when I had private insurance was that maternity coverage costs a FORTUNE…like an extra 400 bucks a month. I opted not to take that coverage, but we would have been in big trouble if I had accidentally gotten pregnant….
Geoff from Don’t Do It Yourself reminded me about other insurance (I’m on liability only with low mileage, but this may apply to others):
Thinking about other types of insurance…..now that you work from home have you considered adjusting your car insurance to reflect that you don’t have a commute? I clasify my car as “leisure-only” and save a bundle.
My Current Plan of Attack
I do think I can be insured cheaper elsewhere. I will start looking into new plans and all the suggestions above in September and make up my mind by the time the next open enrollment period rolls around in October. Either I will find out that my current plan is okay or I’ll find an even better option to jump on.
Did you have any other suggested sites or companies for me and others to check out? What do you think about the $165 biweekly rate?
I found this post to be very interesting. There have been two big things keeping me from being brave enough to ever consider quitting my job and being self-employed. #1 is paying off my house, and it looks like I will have that done very soon. The other has been health insurance. If affordable (and decent) health insurance really exists I might just take the plunge to a freelance lifestyle!
Check this post out http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/health-insurance-for-freelancers/
One resource in particular the author mentions is FreelancersUnion.org which may prove for affordable insurance. You’d have to check based on your needs but it’s an option.
If people are saying they are getting insurance for $140 (I’m assuming that’s for one person) then your $165 bi weekly for two people isn’t bad. Doesn’t hurt to shop around though.
Glad it wasn’t as high as you had been told.
Glad to hear you will be shopping around…don’t know how you find the time, but that’s a different conversation. You’ll never know if you can do better if you don’t find out for yourself. Looking forward to learning what you find.
It seems like you could do better but I don’t know the particulars of your insurance plan. I pay $56 a month for health insurance with a $5000 deductible.
This is supposed to be the new insurance shopping thing Government has developed/revamped after the health care reform – http://finder.healthcare.gov/ may be that will help…
@Denise, don’t let details keep you away from a dream.
@Jesse, thanks for the link!
@Ashley, I’m glad too.
@Hunter, well sleeping is overrated, right?
@Andy, that’s what I want I think…I’ll see…
@Suba, thanks! I’ll check it out!
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