Finding Health Coverage for Young Adults

James Granelli:

For the last few years, underwriters have been targeting young invincibles with more health plans. Some plans have been criticized for benefit caps of $10,000 or less and for not including prescription, dental or vision coverage. But with the general insurance market becoming saturated, young adults may be seeing more and better plans coming.

"It's the last untapped, financially viable market," said analyst William Georges at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Still, insurers don't necessarily make coverage easy to obtain. Here are a few things to consider:

• An individual plan is tougher to get than an employer's group plan because carriers underwrite each policy and exclude people who pose too much of a risk. But the individual plan is cheaper because group plans have to accept everyone, increasing the risks for insurers.
• Many college alumni associations also offer health insurance, usually through two insurance brokers, American Insurance Administrators Inc. and Marsh Affinity Group Services. Marsh offers graduates of about 30 universities in California only a key group feature on their individual plans -- guaranteed acceptance if they apply within 90 days of graduation

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 19, 2008 12:01 AM
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