Set up Auto Pay for Health Insurance ASAP!!!
There is a grace period those of you that bought an individual health insurance plan directly from a Washington State insurance carrier…however it’s much shorter than in the past.
If you do NOT make a payment in time, you literally can NOT get another individual health insurance policy until January 1st 2016. Yes, you are locked out from re-signing up. No exceptions (okay there are a few, but must be documented and have an iron clad reason).
If you have questions about picking out a 2015 plan this will help:
2015 Cheat Sheet Guide to Picking a Plan
The reason they do this is to prevent people from taking advantage of the “grace period” and having a “FREE” month of coverage without paying your premium (for example if you are going to have new work coverage start on March 1st, why pay the month of February if you can ride out the last 30-day grace period for no cost. If you have a medical emergency simply pay the premium and it’s all covered like normal). That’s how to game the system (but you didn’t hear it from me…)
Yes this has been going on for years, but now they are finally cracking down. Even if you accidentally forget to pay, go on vacation, your mail gets lost. They don’t really care why, as we are all “adults” and know that it is due anyways.
So the conclusion of this post is to make sure to set up auto-pay for your 2015 health insurance premiums!
Below are my areas of expertise:
- Health Insurance (Every company in Washington State)
- Life Insurance (33 companies)
- Disability Insurance (8 companies)
- Tax Sheltered Accounts (Following IRS guidelines)
Gary Franke, MBA
Independent Broker
Achieve Alpha Insurance, LLC
12507 Bel-Red Rd, Ste 103
Bellevue, WA 98005
Phone:(425) 802-2783
gary@achieve-alpha.com
www.achieve-alpha.com