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Thought for sure I posted this question five minutes ago; but I guess not.
Anyway, what is the best way to choose an insurance carrier ?
How does one compare competing companies ?
What are the questions to ask ?
The context of these questions is a newly forming startup company. The goal is a good simple basic plan that provides...
- Peace of mind for disastrous medical emergencies
- Care for severe illnesses if they develop
- Simple procedures for regular maintenance visits
As for Dental / Drug / Vision, I am also clueless, and would like to learn the questions to ask.
When the insurance carriers sell their coverages to small companies, what are they NOT telling them ?
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My previous job was with a medical insurance company.
I would say that on the whole they are not trying to con you. Be sure to ask all the questions first before signing.
The one area that can catch some people out is pre-existing conditions, so conditions like diabetes, asthma etc would need to be declared to the company just to be sure that a claim is not invalidated when a claim needs to be made.
Most companies will not cover dentistry and many will not cover elective MRI etc scans(quite simply because elective MRI etc scans are not statistically justifiable from a clinical point of view).
My experience of working for the company was that they are concerned with the health of their clients. With the huge over prescribing of polypharmacy in the US they can sometimes have better experience with regards to what medical interventions are successful than your average doctor may have(they have access to a huge volume of statistical data).
If there is any advice I would suggest it is be sure to pick a company where you can have access to free clinical advice - the company I worked for employed clinicians(nurses and doctors) who were able to help clients determine whether or not they needed a medical intervention.
These clinical services may also have weight loss or 'stop smoking' programs associated with them which can be of benefit to employees.
C-P-User-3 wrote: When the insurance carriers sell their coverages to small companies, what are they NOT telling them ?
By law they have to tell you everything and you have to answer their questions honestly, ask about the 'small print' as there shouldn't be any.
They will occasionally refuse a payment when your physician is proverbially 'taking the piss' by over-prescribing - and some physicians do this.
The medical insurance industry is highly competitive and it is not in their best interest to rip you off, they want to keep you healthy so that you can continue to pay your modest premiums.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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As an addendum to this, I would reinforce the fact that you shouldn't hide pre-existing conditions in an attempt to save a buck. As Guy says, this could invalidate your claims plus it's not usually an issue anyway as myself as a type 1 diabetic and a colleague who only really realized he had asthma late in life discovered; it doesn't seem to affect your excess/costs in any way as we found our quotes were still coming out at the same sort of level as before (albeit going down a bit as this would be a yearly renewal).
That being said, when attempting to sort insurance for someone with a grade 3 heart murmur, the underwriter had to put in a proviso that the insurance wouldn't cover anything as a result of said condition unless this was to go away in which case they'd need letters from two sources confirming this (seems unlikely to me but ok).
I am writing for a UK point of view and what I'm talking about is a bit of a sidestep in terms of circumstances.
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I can't answer all of your questions but one of the most important base questions is, are you a sickly person? If you are going to need lots of pharmaceuticals and doctor's visits, then you will need to pick the most bang for your buck.
If you only see the doctor 2 or 3 times a year, then go for a high deductible, with low out of pocket expense. No sense in paying a lot of money on premiums for nothing.
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Hey gang, let me clarify.
I will be the first employee.
This will be a new company.
What we choose will affect me first, but others as well.
Self-Interest has an extra facet here; we need to make sure the company benefits as well as me.
I'm thinking of something that rewards non-smoking, non-drinking, drug-free people who hit the gym every day.
Oh but,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Does that illegally discriminate against smoking drunks who get stoned and who hate physical exercise ?
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I commented on your other thread. You are going to find it difficult to purchase a policy for your business with just one employee. I'm in the same situation, and they immediately push me to an individual policy.
You will find the deductibles and co-pays are enormous. Some companies WERE selling high deductible policies (to keep the monthly costs down) and adding a rider policy that sort of covered some of the deductible and co-pay.
The biggest problem I encountered with the not-Affordable Care Act, is that it totally elephants large families. It used to be that coverage was single, couple, family. Now they charge per head. I still have 3 at home- family coverage cost me nearly $1,800/month. That's with a $2,000 deductible per person, a $2,000 co-pay per person, to a potential total of $12,000. In my mind, that's not insurance.
As far as pushing health, etc, it depends on how you structure your company. One way to save $$ is to "self-insure". The company covers some amount of potential claims to some limit. Claims after this go against the policy - sort of a very high deductible plan. So, the company has an incentive to help it's employees stay healthy.
Going to say something discriminatory now  . Don't know how old you are, but if you have a young work force, your costs will be lower. Now as low as they were in the past. You youngsters are now paying for us old folks. Thanks for the help.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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After having to reset my password on several web accounts, I realized that all someone needs to logon into any of my accounts is my e-mail. All password resetting involves sending me an e-mail. So if someone can receive my e-mail, they can reset all of my internet passwords.
How difficult is it to redirect my e-mail somewhere else? Is it just my e-mail password that's required? Or is something else involved?
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for me, they would still need my phone to complete the two-step authentication.
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That's ok we have that cloned
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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DavidSherwood wrote: How difficult is it to redirect my e-mail somewhere else?
Assuming you:
1 - Don't have any malware sending login info off to you new Nigerian friends
  1.1 - Aren't logged into a sleazy public connection
2 - Don't leave your (strong) password taped to your screen
3 - Your ISP isn't out to get you.
Then getting into your email should be difficult.
Want to worry about something? Anyone who can write (or obtain) an SMTP mailer can put you as the sender - and for all practical purposes - recipients will believe it.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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So I guess most of you have heard of the MEAN stack, MongoDB, Express, AngularJS and Node.js.
But are you familiar with ANNE? AngularJS, Neo4J, Node.js and Express (you may switch Neo4J and Node.js around if you like!)
And then I just found BEANS, Bootstrap, Express, AngularJS, Node.js and Sockets.io.
So what's next?
BEER - Big Data, Express, Ember.js and Redis?
WINE - Web, Ionic, Node.js, Express?
GIN - GIS (Geographic Information System, hah!), iOS, Node.js?
I really love all those abbrevs. in IT
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How about JERK - JavaScript, Express, RavenDB, Knockout
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I call Bootstrap, Sockets.io!
(Just for the sake of it  )
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Sander Rossel wrote: I really love all those abbrevs. in IT
To add: have a look at Directly Injected CSS[^] project. Especially read the description on the page.
I ain't got no signature.
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Now that's how documentation should be written! Laughed my ass off!
- S
50 cups of coffee and you know it's on!
Code, follow, or get out of the way.
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I'm already working on my own extension, Styling Homepages In CSS WITH DICCS (SHICSS WITH DICSS) 
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"Python Internet Server Side EDits" anyone?
veni bibi saltavi
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Sander Rossel wrote: I really love all those abbrevs. in IT
If you've done any Windows shell programming, you'll be familiar with the PIDL[^] and SHITEMID[^] structures, both of which sound a bit rude.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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I don't want none of that sh*t
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When was the <ACRONYM> tag added to the supported list? And is it documented somewhere, or did you have to discover it by random?
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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I think it's been supported for many years. Technically, it should be the <abbr> tag, since <acronym> is now obsolete[^], but it doesn't have the same styling due to the site's CSS reset:
html, div, span, applet, object, iframe, a, abbr, acronym, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, fieldset, form, label, table, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td, li, ol, ul {
margin:0;
padding:0;
border:0
}
acronym {
cursor: help;
border-bottom: 1px dashed #666;
}
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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The photo-shopped pics ruined it for me.
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I tried to search for "OnePlus One[^]" in Omnibox, the world's righteous browser (pun intended) replied, "2".
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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I thought it would be 10
Mongo: Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
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