Choosing health insurance is not exactly an easy task, but if you take into consideration just these five very important items, you should be able to make a good decision. These are key to you getting a policy that is right for you.

1. The Insurance Company’s Rating
Get your agent to check the company’s A.M. Best rating. Choose only those insurance companies with an A or A+ rating. If the company is highly rated at this national rating registry, you will find information here with an explanation. A.M. Best is the leading provider of health insurance industry ratings, news, data, and analysis.

2. The Insurance Company’s Record of Complaints at your State Board of Insurance
It is typical for large companies to have some complaints. Avoid companies that have a large number of unresolved complaints. You can get the phone number of your State Board of Insurance from your agent. If the agent is reluctant, then it is a warning signal. Alternatively, you can get the number from any directory of your state’s agencies. Then call the State Board of Insurance and ask them for the record of whichever company you are considering.

3. The Limits Shown On Your Health Insurance Quote
Review your quote and check out the benefit levels. There are some changes that you can make to suit your needs and budget. A higher deductible, for example, will mean a lower premium amount. There are also plans that allow you split your medical bills with the insurance company either 80/20 (with them paying 80%) or 50/50.

Then there will be an amount (your stop loss) where they will take over at paying 100% of your covered bills for the remainder of the year. These deductibles and other levels start over every year in most plans. However, there are some plans, that have a “per cause” deductible. This means that you will be responsible for bills up to that deductible for each accident or illness. Make sure you are clear and of this distinction and understand it, so you can choose a plan that’s right for YOU!

4. The Limits Revealed Within The Policy
Get a sample policy from you agent and check The Benefits and The Limitations and Exclusions sections.

Ask your agent for a sample policy, and then check two sections: The Benefits and The Limitations and Exclusions. Many of your benefits are actually limited in the Benefits section. For example, diagnostic testing or outpatient treatment may be severely limited. These days, you could have a serious disease such as cancer, and never go into the hospital for it. You could rack up thousands of dollars in medical bills for the diagnostic and follow-up lab tests and MRIs, and then have surgery, chemo, or radiation therapy all on an outpatient basis.

Other items that may be limited are your hospital room rate and intensive care. Your hospital room rate should be at least average semi-private and your intensive care benefit should NOT be tied to your room rate, but should, instead, be covered as whatever is an average ICU rate for the area of the hospital, also. Some policies limit the ICU benefit to 3 times the regular room rate, when ICU can cost you 10 or 20 times the room rate each day. A short hospital stay with a limit like this in your policy can cost you literally thousands of dollars. A long hospital stay with a limit like this in your policy could drive you into bankruptcy. Even if your policy says it takes over at 100% after $5,000 of covered medical bills, the important term here is “covered” medical bills. If the policy only pays three times the room rate for ICU, then the rest of the ICU bill is considered an “uncovered” charge!

Watch out for these kind of limits!

Also, be sure to check the Pre-Existing Conditions Limitation if you already have any medical conditions, and ask your agent if the Company will be excluding your conditions permanently on your policy.

5. Pay the Insurance Company, Not the Agent, & Follow Up!
Lastly, make your payment to the company and not the agent. Follow up to confirm that they have received it. Once you get your policy, check carefully the Schedule of Benefits to confirm that you got the coverage as you had ordered. Further check to see if any special Amendments have been added to your policy to exclude any of your conditions. If an Amendment exists, these conditions will always be excluded from this policy, even after the Pre-Existing Conditions Limitation expires.

Following through these five things will help you in choosing health insurance that will protect you from catastrophic medical bills. Do not take foregranted that is what any health insurance policy will do, because not just any policy will do for your specific needs. So make the effort to choose wisely.