Anthem BCBS Honors Bridgeport, Connecticut Father & Son Agency

June 29, 2010 @ 08:18 Filed under: Press Releases — Alston

Press Release

Bridgeport, CT June 26, 2010 — Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Haven, Connecticut recently recognized 17 Connecticut Health Insurance agents as “Premier Partners” for 2010. Two of the agents so honored include the father and son of a small family-owned insurance agency based in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1800insuranceCT.com LLC.

The prospect of purchasing health insurance causes many consumers a lot of frustration and confusion. Some of that may change when the health care reform mandates go into effect. But for now, consumers exploring their options can be faced with a process that is both time consuming and anxiety-ridden.

Small mom and pop insurance agencies often provide great personal service, but are frequently lacking in other areas. The national websites that provide insurance quotes will frequently have a “press 6 to stay on hold a little longer” approach to customer service.

Fortunately there are a few small family-owned agencies that have one foot in the twentieth century and the other in the twenty first. They are able to combine old fashioned one-to-one customer service with constantly-updated interactive websites that are on a par with those of their national competitors.

One of these agencies is the father and son health insurance agency 1800insuranceCT.com LLC. They don’t make house calls, but they do answer their phone as late as 9:00 pm.

By narrowing their focus to Connecticut, they are able to offer their clients more choices. Their independent agency represents all state-approved private health insurance companies that insure individuals and families. This includes well-known companies like Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna and United Health Care as well as lesser known ones like Celtic and Fortis.

By devoting most of their resources to one type of insurance and to one state, 1800insuranceCT.com has achieved a high level of customer satisfaction and has been able to grow even during this recession. Evidence of this is the “Premier Partners” for 2010 designation that Anthem Blue Cross has awarded to their two health insurance agents and their A+ Better Business Bureau rating.

Fortunately for both consumers and small agencies like theirs, the law dictates that clients are charged exactly the same premiums whether they contact their insurance company directly or work with an independent broker. Many insurance seekers find comfort in this. This law means that they can get objective recommendations from a broker who represents competing companies without paying extra for the advice or personal service.

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Connecticut has selected only 17 agents across the state for the “Preferred Partners” honor this year. Two of those agents are Alston J. Balkcom and his son Joel A. Balkcom. They are two of the three agents in their small agency. The third agent is Joel’s wife and Alston’s daughter-in-law Deanna Balkcom. She is their life insurance specialist.

For more information you can visit Alston’s Connecticut insurance blog where his posts include opinions about health care reform as well as information that helps Connecticut families make better medical insurance choices.

You can also get instant health insurance quotes by completing a questionnaire on their site or by calling 1-800-INS-URANce (Call 203-374-3645 if not calling from Connecticut.)

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Insurance Tip: How to Cut Your Health Insurance Costs in Half

June 3, 2010 @ 16:17 Filed under: Health Insurance Tips — Alston

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Insurance policies are designed to shift the risk from the insured to the insurer. However, shifting too much risk to the insurer can raise your price more than the additional “security” is worth.

Most consumers know that the more risk they take, the lower their premiums. For example when all else is equal, the policy with the higher deductible is going to be less expensive. The policy with the low deductible is, conversely, going to be more expensive.

Your price for insurance goes down when your share of the risk goes up. This is no secret. What is not known as widely is the price does not go down at the same rate that the risk goes up.

Do you remember playing on a seesaw as a kid? Do you remember adjusting the fulcrum when a bigger or smaller kid wanted to pay with you?

On a properly adjusted seesaw the bigger kid goes down when the smaller kid goes up, but not at the same rate! This is the way it is with insurance. Often, when your deductible goes up a little, your price goes down a lot.

High and moderate deductible policies are almost always better bargains when compared to low or no deductible policies. This is true for health insurance policies. It is also true for car insurance policies and homeowners’ insurance policies.

You not only cut your health insurance cost in half by taking a moderate or high deductible policy but you can also increase your long-term savings. To reduce your risk you can put the money you save into a savings account or investment. If you choose to purchase a policy that is health savings account compatible, you may be able to do so on a tax-free basis. If your health care expenses are low over the years, you may build up a good nest egg.

If you currently have a low deductible insurance policy, do three things. Determine your potential savings by subtracting the ANNUAL cost of a policy with a higher deductible from ANNUAL the cost of your current policy. Calculate the additional risk you will take on if you took the less expensive policy. Subtract the potential annual savings from the amount of additional risk.

The answer to the above equation will tell you whether you should purchase a higher deductible policy or not. Let your calculator help you make the right decision regarding which health insurance policy to purchase.

You can view Connecticut health insurance rates on your site. You can get your medical insurance questions answered by calling 1-800-467-8726 or 1-203-374-3645.

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Avoiding Insurance Scams – Purchase Health Insurance that Works

April 2, 2010 @ 13:14 Filed under: Health Insurance Tips — Alston

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You want to purchase health insurance that works for you and not against you. To avoid an insurance scam, it is important that you buy from an approved insurance company that is financially stable and that the policy you select meets your standards. More Below Video…

Buy From Approved Health Insurance Companies Only

To find which companies are approved to sell health insurance in your state, you can visit your insurance department’s website or call them. I’ve put together this list of insurance departments. It is alphabetized by state. It includes phone numbers and links.

If you want to buy health insurance in Connecticut, make sure that rule out companies that are not approved by our Connecticut Insurance Department. Here is their list of approved health insurance companies.

In some cases an insurance company will sell under more than one name. This can make checking them out a little tricky.

In Connecticut, Time is listed as an approved company. However, most of their literature will reference Assurant Health, Fortis or John Alden. Golden Rule is also listed. They are a United Health One company. Their older literature will reference United Health Care.

Making sure that you purchase only from health insurance companies that are approved by your insurance department goes a long way towards making sure that you avoid an insurance scam. You can expect that your insurance department has checked them out and believes that they are financially stable and that the policies they sell meet certain standards.

However, this should only be a first step. You should do a little checking on your own.

Which Health Insurance Companies are, and will be, Financially Stable?

After you have narrowed your list to companies that are approved by your insurance department you may want to do some checking on your own. You can check their AM Best Rating and see how financially stable they are.

An A.M. Best report addresses the company’s current financial stability. It also gives you their projection of the company’s future financial stability.

(We are adding life insurance to our agency soon. I used AM Best to help me determine which companies’ products we should offer to our clients.)

Is the Policy Any Good?

Just like with an IOU, the ability to pay is only part of the battle. If the contract doesn’t meet your needs or isn’t a fair exchange for your money, you shouldn’t take the policy or the IOU.

You should be able to get information on the following from your insurance department:

Number of complaints
Percentage of received premium paid out in claims

Even the best companies will have some complaints. The ratio between complaints and in force policies is what’s important.

The better companies will pay doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and other providers eighty percent or more of the premium dollars they take in.

If you purchase from a company that is approved by your insurance department, you will eliminate most of the horrible policies. However I’ve found that a few of the companies that are approved by the Connecticut insurance department sell some policies are below the standards I have for my agency.

One company has a series of policies that have calendar year maximums that are equal to the average cost of a hospital stay. This company sells many other policies I like and often recommend. Two of the companies sell policies that severely limit your benefits in the doctor’s office, but offers other health insurance policies that are excellent.

Some things to avoid include:

short-term health insurance policies (usually)
health insurance policies with low lifetime limits
health insurance policies with calendar year limits
policies that limit doctor visits

An insurance policy is basically an IOU or more precisely an “IOU if.” In another words they owe you if certain things happen.

Judge an insurance policy the same way you judge an IOU. An IOU is only as good as the person behind it. Are there too many complaints or a history of not paying claims?

You want to buy your health insurance from a company that has a history of paying claims just like you only want an IOU from someone who has a history of repaying their debts. You want to make sure that your company has the financial resources to pay future debts. You may not want to take an IOU from someone has a good history of paying their debts, if he lost his job yesterday. You want a good terms on the IOU, just like you don’t want an IOU for $50 when you loan someone $100.

If you are shopping for health insurance in Connecticut, please give us a call. We’d love to help. You can reach us at 203-374-3645 or 800-467-8726.

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You Shouldn’t Have to Marry for Health Insurance

March 14, 2010 @ 16:35 Filed under: National Health Care: Alston's Proposal — Tags: video health insurance tips — Alston

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Finding insurance when you have a pre existing health condition can be difficult. Some people with certain medical conditions find that they can’t get health insurance at an affordable rate no matter what they do. However there are things that you can do to increase your chances of finding a good health insurance policy even if you have been denied in the past.

Below you will see a video response to Terri Carlson’s funny but poignant video Will Marry for Health insurance!!!!

A summary of my health insurance video tips is below.

Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Tips:

Never drop a current health insurance policy until you have an approval from the new company.
Continue to shop around if you have received a medical insurance denial. Not every company will say “no” just because others have said “no.”
A “no” isn’t always a permanent “no.” You may be able to get an approval if your condition is stable for a period of time.
If you have been denied, see how close you are to the guidelines. If your denial involved obesity, you may only need to lose an additional 10 pounds. If it is for another health condition you may only need to be symptom free for another two months.

Ways to get health insurance without marrying someone include:

Starting a business. In many if not all states, you are guaranteed a policy if you are part of a group. In most states the minimum number of employees is two in others it is only one.

Getting coverage from the government. Check federal, state and local levels. One way to look for the options available to you is to do an advanced Google search and limit your search to .gov (government only) websites.

To do this, go to Google.com and click on “Advanced Search.” Enter a query such as “guaranteed health insurance in Florida” in the top box and enter “.gov” in the “Search within a site or domain:” box. This will give you better results than a general search that will include commercial websites.

You may also want to check out this page about pre-existing conditions on CNN’s website.

Back to My (work in progress) Health Care Proposal:

I, for one, don’t believe that people should be denied because they have medical conditions.

However, it will take a lot to change the current system. If any insurance company decided to “do the right thing” and insure everybody, they would quickly go out of business. They would be flooded with people who have costly conditions, they would be forced to raise their rates and they would lose many of their healthy customers to their competitors and then their rates would go up again. Eventually they would simply go out of business.

50 to 70% of insurance companies’ claims expenses come from only 10% of their policyholders. This means that adding another 10% with similar or worse conditions could cause rates to increase dramatically.

If costs are going to stay the same they will need to bring in several new healthy people in order to insure just one additional unhealthy person.

The system needs to be changed globally. In order for one insurance company to be able to offer health insurance to everyone regardless of medical conditions all insurance companies would have to be mandated to do so.

Also, their policyholders would have to have a similar mandate! Companies won’t be able to offer insurance to everyone if we are able to buy health insurance after we get diagnosed with a condition and then drop it after we have the expensive operation that will fix the condition. If the insurance companies aren’t allowed to cherry pick, the consumer can’t be allowed to do so either.

There are no easy answers. Health insurance is a lot more complex than most people realize. However, the fact that people are even thinking about marrying for health insurance is a very sad commentary on our current system. I truly hope that something is done to make health insurance available to all of our citizens sooner rather than later.

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Lower Health Insurance Costs by Lowering Health Care Costs

March 10, 2010 @ 18:10 Filed under: Health Insurance Tips,National Health Care: Alston's Proposal — Tags: video health insurance tips — Alston

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The health care debate is to a great degree misnamed. It is a debate about sickness care and who has to pay for it. A debate about health care would address the issue that is making our costs skyrocket.

If we continue to focus on figuring out who pays for sickness care and continue to do so little about prevention, we will never address the real problem. The real problem is that as a nation, we are getting sicker and sicker. This is one of the major factors that increases our costs for health insurance.

It is to a large degree a matter of supply and demand. There is a huge demand for health care and there is an under supply of those who are qualified to deliver proper health care. If we can reduce the number of times the average American needs to visit his or her doctor, we will reduce our costs.

Healthier people make more and do more. Not only would a healthier America have lower costs for health care, we would probably have a higher GDP, a more educated population and one that has stronger values.

People who are healthier will take less time off from work due to sickness and will get more done. They will also work more years because they will retire early due to disability less frequently. More hours and years worked equals more productivity and a bigger Gross Domestic Product.

When a parent is disabled or dies before their children are grown, there is less money available to educate those children. There is also a void in the child or children’s life that makes it less likely that they will get the best education.

Healthier people are get to parent longer and pass on their values and wisdom. I’m one of millions of people who lost a parent before reaching maturity. I know that my life would have been easier and better if I had the benefit of my father’s wisdom for a few more years.

I understand that many people have serious medical conditions that they cannot control. Some things cannot be fixed. However, this is not the case for most of us. By staying healthier longer, we can reduce the strain on our health care system. This can make it easier for those who have concerns about getting insurance with pre existing conditions to get coverage ata reasonable price.

Although you and I can do little to affect the health of our nation, chances are we can do a lot to improve our health. Regular checkups, a better diet and regular exercise can go a long way towards making us healthier, happier and more productive people.

Lowering our health insurance costs should start with reducing our need for health care. Do what you can to stay healthier longer and do what you can to make it easier for those around you to do the same.

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Why is health insurance so Confusing?

March 7, 2010 @ 01:00 Filed under: Health Insurance Tips — Alston

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Comparing one health insurance policy with another is too much of an apples to oranges comparison. People should understand what benefits they are buying and what they are not buying. The lack of transparency here makes buying health insurance difficult because it is difficult to compare health insurance plans.

The focus of my agency has been health insurance for the last five years or so. In the 90s I sold health insurance for Mutual of Omaha. I also helped people buy car and homeowners insurance in the 80s when I worked for MetLife.

The Difficulty of Comparing Health Insurance Plans

I actively sell medical insurance. I haven’t sold car or homeowners insurance in over twenty years, but it still takes me less time to understand a car insurance policy from a company I haven’t seen before than it does a health insurance policy from a company I haven’t seen before. There is something wrong with that! I don’t think it is my neurology. I think it is the fact that auto and homeowners policies are standardized and health insurance is not.

If people were able to more easily understand and compare health insurance plans, many of the policies I see today would not be sold. There are several policies that we have decided not to sell because they limit the important benefits. However, they have some attractive bells and whistles that distract the consumer and make them believe that the policies are better than they are.

I remember buying a tape player from an off brand company a long time ago. When I got it home I realized that it didn’t have a rewind button. If I wanted to rewind the tape I had to turn it over and press fast forward.

There was nothing on the box or in the documentation that said that it had a rewind button. I still felt ripped off. I had come to expect that functionality in a tape player.

Health insurance should cover all the major things we all expect unless there is a clear statement “on the box” saying that there is no rewind button. Health insurance should be standardized and easy to understand.

Standardization hasn’t hurt the auto and homeowners insurance industry. People still purchase those types of policies everyday and there are many insurance companies and policies to choose from.

When the policies are the same or nearly the same, we can make better decisions. If we decide to spend 10% extra to buy from a brand name company or better service, that’s OK. The consumer gets to make that decision for him or herself. However, we shouldn’t pay 20% extra and merely think that it is only 10%.

I’m sure that some companies went out of business when they realized that they couldn’t keep up. Insurance companies that are unable to dazzle us with brilliance will go out of business once they can no longer baffle us with their misleading policies. I say good riddance!

If I were king medical insurance policies would be standardized so that people would know what they are buying. This would make it much easier for people to make intelligent decisions about something as important as the insurance that will pay for them to have their children and live longer, healthier lives.

Why is health insurance so complicated? I don’t know why for sure, but it shouldn’t be.

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National Health Care: Alston’s Proposal

February 27, 2010 @ 21:32 Filed under: National Health Care: Alston's Proposal — Alston

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This is the first of a series of blog posts which will end with what I believe is a common sense approach to solving our health care problem in a way that will make both as individuals and as a nation healthier, happier and wealthier.

Your comments and opinions are encouraged.

Health Care Who’s on First?

It seems to me that our objectives are to make sure that everyone is as healthy as possible for as long as possible at as low a cost as possible. The first two objectives are, or at least appear to be, at odds with the third. However, a healthier citizenry can in theory be a more productive citizenry. That extra productivity has the potential to make up for the additional cost.

As a business owner, I think a lot about where my resources should go to generate the most profit. Where can I put a dollar and expect to get two dollars back in the shortest period of time? When I look at the issue of health care I think along the same lines. If we first do what we can to keep more of our citizens productive and healthy during their working years, we may be able to generate more tax dollars and pay for some or all of the cost of better health care for all our citizens.

Some of the health problems that keep so many of us from working could be easily and cheaply fixed or could have been easily and cheaply prevented. In my health care proposal the money would go here first.

How do we easily and cheaply improve our nation’s health and wealth? Perhaps we can step up screening for the diseases that most affect people in their working years or as children. Perhaps we could pass a law that states that only those who are of legal age to smoke at the time of the law’s passing get to smoke in the future. Perhaps we get our school buses to drop our kids off a mile from school unless the weather is bad or the streets are unsafe. There must be a million creative ways to improve our nation’s health without spending a lot of money.

Too much of the health care debate is about who pays for health care. Too little is about what we can do to lower the costs of treatment. If we can use expensive health care interventions less frequently because we need them less, we can lower the cost of health care instead of merely shifting the cost of health care to different parties.

A healthier population will be a more productive population. This will increase GDP and our tax base. Further if we have a healthier country and fewer parents die before their children reach maturity everybody wins both today and tomorrow as we will also be helping to make the next generation healthier and more productive.

As stated above, your comments are encouraged.

In my next post I will attempt to answer the question “Why is Health Insurance So Confusing?”

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Discount Insurance Rates

January 12, 2010 @ 13:04 Filed under: Finding Health Insurance,Health Insurance Tips — Tags: discount insurance rates — Alston

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It is important to know that there are no discount insurance rates. Insurance companies file the rates for their policies with the insurance department and no website, no face-to-face broker and not even the insurance company itself can offer you a discount. This is true for not just one of the companies but for all. Discount insurance rates do not exist for private health insurance.

However, this doesn’t mean that each company charges the same rate. Each insurance company has a different system for determining their rates.
There is definitely a benefit to shopping around and looking at different company’s prices. Often there is a big difference between the highest priced carrier for a given age, gender and zip code.
Since we are appointed with all the private companies offering individual and family health insurance, we can help you shop all the companies if you are looking for health insurance prices for Connecticut. if you are looking for private health insurance in another state visit our sister site.

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Why Does Health Insurance Cost So Much?

January 11, 2010 @ 16:27 Filed under: Medical Insurance Miscelaneous — Alston

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As you can see in the graphic below, the main reason that health insurance costs so much is because health care costs so much. Most of the money that health insurance companies take in goes right back out to pay for their policyholders’ claims.

If you add the cost of marketing (which includes my compensation) to the insurance company profits you will get 7%. Would a 7% reduction in the cost of health insurance solve this crisis?

AHIP health insurance dollar

The graphic above is based on information in the AHIP report.

The idea that massive insurance company profits are the cause of our national health care crisis is ridiculous. Any health care reform proposal that is based on the idea that removing these profits will solve our problem should be discarded. Any politician who promotes an idea that is based on this premise is either lying or uninformed.

Logically the solution to the problem must involve reducing the 87 cents that are being spent on health care not on the other 13 cents that goes to marketing, administration and insurance company profits.

Not only has the cost of doctor and hospital services risen, but the frequency of use has also risen. Less nicotine, alcohol and other drugs ingested might make a difference here. More walking and cleaner water might also make a difference. I’m not sure how our government can or should get involve in these areas, but it would seem like some proposals that are designed to help us be healthier might have more impact.

As an insurance agent of over 20 years, I do have an unavoidable bias. However, I also have more information about this industry than most do. I’ve found an industry full of people who appear no more or less scrupulous than the population in general.

It is not hard to find anecdotal evidence that would lead you to believe that the health insurance industry is full of unscrupulous practices. However, we must bear in mind that this is an industry that services over a hundred million people.

I’d love to have your comments on this post. I do read my blog comments almost every day.

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Newborn Insurance

January 10, 2010 @ 14:35 Filed under: Medical Insurance Miscelaneous — Tags: baby insurance — Alston

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Newborn insurance can sometimes refer to life insurance for your child. However this article is about health insurance for a baby.
This type of newborn insurance is generally available with no medical questions asked if one of the parents is covered by a health insurance policy so long as the health insurance company is notified of your desire to cover your child immediately.
Most contracts will require that you formally request coverage for your child within 30 days in order for your child to be covered by your policy without medical underwriting. To protect the health and welfare of your child as well as your finances it is important that you notify your insurance company as soon as possible.
Your insurance policy doesn’t need to cover maternity expenses to have this provision. So even if your policy doesn’t include maternity coverage, it is important to keep the policy so that your child can be insured regardless of any medical problems that may arise.
Also, it is important to know that most health policies that do not cover normal childbirth will typically cover the complications of childbirth. This is another reason to keep your health insurance policy in place if you discover that you are pregnant, but do not have maternity insurance.
It is important that you have medical coverage for your newborn. Insurance can protect you from the high costs of the life-saving procedures performed on a lot of infants. If you are in a situation where your child’s health is in danger, a lack of money should not impact the difficult decisions you will need to make. It is sad but newborn hospital deaths are highest for those with no insurance.

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