Individual Plans

If your employer doesn't offer benefits, the costs for your dependents are too high on your employer's group plan and you just want to insure your children, you are in-between jobs, or COBRA is too expensive or not available, then those are all good indicators you need an individual health insurance plan.

Below are our most popular offerings. If by chance you don’t see what you’re looking for on the list, please ask. We will find a way to get you what you need.

Accident Care
There are many kinds of catastrophic accidents that can happen suddenly, or in the course of engaging in what an actuary would deem “risky” behavior (e.g., rugby, motocross). The consequences could be serious -- ranging from ongoing disabilities to weeks of hospitalization. Medical expenses incurred as a result of an accident can be offset by having this plan in place.

Dental
In general, a dental insurance plan covers a percentage of the dental charges incurred at a dental office. There are several different types of individual and family insurance plans for purchase. They have a wide range of coverage options which may include free preventative services such as cleanings. There is no industry standard annual maximum limitation, deductable, or co-pay. Such coverages and benefit limitations are determined by each insurance company as filed with the department of insurance. Coverage can also include orthodontic treatment and care.

Disability Insurance
When the family’s main breadwinner gets seriously hurt, the financial loss can be devastating. Disability coverage helps provide home care and comprehensive long-term care recovery for those individuals who want to maintain and preserve their financial and emotional independence during times of crisis.

Young workers, whether they are single or married, need this coverage even more than life insurance because they are much more likely to become disabled than die. In many cases, two-income couples should have disability insurance for both wage earners, including coverage on their assets and individual incomes.

Legal Insurance
According to an American Bar Association survey, the average person needs to seek legal advice four to six times a year, but doesn't because of the high cost. Many small business owners who need a lawyer but can't afford one now have the option of legal insurance.
It works much like an HMO giving businesses access to a network of attorneys who agree to provide services for free or discounted rates in exchange for a steady stream of business.

The benefits of pre-paid legal plans, particularly the more affordable access plans, include easy access to an attorney, significant cost savings, and, in many cases, preventive services that can help with issues before they reach crisis proportions. For instance, a lawyer may be contacted for advice on mediating a dispute with a neighbor over property lines instead of arguing until the dispute becomes a lawsuit.

Life Insurance
The cost of life insurance will depend upon the type of policy, as well as the insured’s age and health.

A life insurance contract is made up of provisions, options and riders. Provisions describe or explain features, benefits, conditions or requirements of the contract. Options are features of the agreement that require a choice to be made regarding some aspect of coverage. Riders are additional coverage (or endorsements) offered by the insurer at the time of application and added to the standard agreement in return for an additional premium.

Whole life insurance provides a set dollar amount of coverage, which can never be canceled, in exchange for fixed, uniform payments. Because the payments are the same throughout your life, in the early years of the policy the premiums are high compared to your statistical risk of death. This is why reserves are built up.

Assuming you live a long while after the policy was issued, your payments become low, compared to your risk of death. In other words, during the first few years of a whole life policy, insurance companies take in substantially more money than they pay out. The insurance company invests the surplus. Some of the surplus becomes your cash reserve, which grows over time. The cash reserve earns dividends, paid by the insurance company. After a set time, usually several years, you have the right to borrow against the cash reserve. You can also cancel the policy and receive its cash surrender value.

Term life insurance provides a preset amount of cash if you die while the policy is in force. For example, a five-year $130,000 term policy pays off if you die within five years. If you live beyond the end of the term, you do not receive any money. With term insurance, you pay only for life insurance coverage. The policy does not develop reserves.
Term life insurance is the cheapest form of coverage over a limited number of years. There are many types of term insurance, such as policies that have an automatic right to renew for an additional term, but these options don't change the basic fact that term insurance pays off if you die during the policy time period and doesn't pay anything if you live beyond that period.

Universal life insurance combines some of the desirable features of both term and whole life, but universal coverage offers some unique advantages, including:
•    The net cost of universal coverage is usually lower than whole life insurance.
•    With universal life, you can build a cash reserve (as with whole life), but you can also vary the premium payments and/or amount of coverage from year to year.
•    Universal coverages normally provide you with more consumer information than whole life policies.

Long Term Care
LTC describes the plan available for individuals who reach the point of no longer being able to perform the "activities of daily living" by themselves, such as eating, bathing or getting dressed. It also includes the kind of care necessary for one with severe cognitive impairment like Alzheimer’s disease.

Care can be received in a variety of settings, including the insured’s home, assisted living facilities, adult day care centers or hospice facilities. LTC can be covered completely or in part by LTC insurance. Most plans offer flexibility in the amount of coverage chosen, as well as how and where those benefits are used. A comprehensive plan includes benefits for all levels of care, custodial to skilled.

Major Medical
There are two types of major medical plans: comprehensive plans that coinsure all covered medical expenses exceeding the deductible; and supplementary plans that coinsure expenses in excess of the deductible and expenses in excess of those covered by another plan. Both supplementary plans and comprehensive plans place ceilings on the amount of benefits payable for each insured person.

Comprehensive major medical plans provide coverage for the same types of services covered by many other plans. Comprehensive plans also include deductibles and co-payment requirements, but may provide first-dollar coverage (full coverage with no deductible) for emergency accident benefits or waive out-of-pocket expenses for certain benefits.

Supplemental plans act as a supplement to another health insurance plan. Supplemental major medical plans cover most medically necessary services excluded under basic insurance plans, as well as charges that exceed the primary plan's limits. Covered services typically include inpatient and outpatient hospital care, special nursing care, outpatient prescription drugs, medical appliances, durable medical equipment, and outpatient psychiatric care. Supplemental major medical plans set deductibles, require co-payments, and often limit total benefits.

Major medical plans are a special type of fee-for-service plan. They are designed to provide protection against long-term chronic or catastrophic illness or injury. These plans cover a broad area of health care services and are designed to protect against large medical expenses only. Typically included in a major medical plan are:

•    the services of private registered nurses
•    at-home, in-office, and in-hospital medical care
•    X-ray treatment
•    prescription drugs
•    laboratory tests

Medical Coverage
Features of a typical medical plan include:
 
•    doctor co-pays
•    drug card coverage
•    deductibles - available at different levels
•    co-insurance
•    set out-of-pocket maximums
•    co-pays for emergency rooms, hospital rooms and urgent care facilities
•    access to a network of qualified providers
 

 Medical Savings Accounts
MSAs are funded with tax-favored dollars. If the employee funds the account, contributions are made on a pre-tax basis, similar to funding an individual retirement account. If the employer funds the account, the contributions may be taken as a corporate tax deduction up to 65 percent of the deductible for a covered individual and 75 percent of the deductible for a covered family.

Once funded, the MSA can be used to provide for various healthcare expenses, including those that may not be normally covered by traditional health insurance, such as acupuncture, holistic medicine, eyeglasses and orthodontia. Medical expenses in excess of the fund and the deductible would then be covered by the health insurance benefit.

If the money in the MSA is not used, it is rolled over into the next year. Money from the MSA can be withdrawn, penalty-free, for non-medical expenses after the employee reaches age 65 or in the event of death or disability. MSAs are portable, remaining with the individual, regardless of employment.

MSAs are currently only available to individuals and businesses with between two and 50 employees.

Vision
Vision plans are relatively inexpensive. They usually have co-pays and annual maximums while materials such as frames and lenses are discounted greatly.
 
Voluntary Plans