FLORIDA HEALTH INSURANCE

Today's Insurance News

Voluntary Payroll Deduction program is beneficial to employer

A study conducted by Chambers of Commerce in the year 2000 reveals that in the year 1999 employer has paid around 36.8 % more above the regular wages paid to the employee. This extra payment by employer utilized towards providing benefits like health coverage, life coverage, and holiday paid leave, pensions and many more. In other word if this benefits are added in to the employee’s paycheck than every 1-dollar of employee’s paycheck is worth 1.39 dollar. These benefits are like gifting employee with the ‘gift voucher’.

The same study also revealed that out of 3 employees only one employee has some idea of this ‘gift voucher’. In short majority of American employees has no idea about how much money it would be, if the benefits given by them from employer were cashed. Every year the payment issued by the employer so that employee enjoys the different benefits is increases as the inflation rises. But irony is that most of the employees do not perceive this. Due to this, recently there grows a trend of cutting costs on employee’s benefits. But they have to maintain some basic benefits in order to retain the good employees.

Voluntary Payroll Deduction program

Recently VPD or Voluntary Payroll Deduction program becomes much popular among the employer specially who is searching some way to cut the benefit of employee without raising un due alarm. Under the Voluntary Payroll Deduction program, employees can buy individual insurance plans with the facility of deducting the premiums directly from their payroll. The employees very well perceive this type of benefit. Since employees also pay for this type of insurance it is often called Individual-employee- owned or paid Insurance. The role of employer is timely sending the premiums to respective health insurance company and deducts the premium amount from the employee’s salary. In short it is administer work that does not require any extra attention or money. This program is not compulsory. Employees may or may not participate in the Voluntary Payroll Deduction program.

Other side of Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan

It is believed by many that Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan is device mainly to help employers to cut down their bill for employee’s benefit. But it is not the right notion. Actually there are numbers of benefits from Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan to employee like

• Employees get conveniences and ease of procedure and other things. Majorities of employees are happy to purchase and pay premiums by deducting the amount from their payroll. There are employees that tend to forget monthly premiums, for them this is really a boon. Most default insurers are due to non-payments of regular premiums.
• Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan is universal that is all employees can opt for it. Many insurance plans specially life insurance plan has very strict underwriting requirements, so that all employees can not participate in it, on the other hand Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan has very few underwriting requirements so all employees can take part in it, or they are free to decline the offer for Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan.
• The insurance plan purchased by employees under the Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan is flexible and possible for the employees to take away their insurance policy when they leave the job. As employees and their families are the sole proprietor of whatever insurance plan employees has taken under Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan, employer has nothing to do with it, so changing the job has no effect on employees insurance policy.

It is very shocking to know that many employees have not purchased any insurance plans. This fact is revealed by the survey conducted by Life Insurance Marketing Research Association shortened as LIMRA. According to the survey 55 % of surveyed employee has no personal insurance. The survey also finds out that more than 80 % of employee has very high chance to live over their group insurance period. So at the time of retirement employees will get large amount of money if they purchase and opt for cash back after some fixed period.

Above are some of the reasons that made Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan very popular among the all types of employees. Since employer has nothing to loose by offering Voluntary Payroll Deduction plan to employees, they usually bargain with the insurance companies and made available various insurances at very competitive rate.

Internet brings price transparency for different health insurance products, but few people know how to take advantage of it. Gone are the days when some companies take days or even weeks to quote for a particular health insurance plan. Now you can have the quote from top 3-4 Florida health companies in few seconds with a click of a mouse button. But very few people use this tool for their advantage.

First step for finding the lowest quote for your particular heath insurance plan is allow all top health insurance companies to compete with each other for your particular health insurance plan. Don’t be panic by considering how much amount of information you have to read when many health insurance companies start spamming you with tons of information. Internet has solution for that also. First try to understand that there only two main types of websites which provides Florida health quotes. This is:

1. Insurance Agency’s website: This websites runs by health insurance agencies. They will show you quote from all top health insurance companies.
2. Marketing Organization websites: In strict sense this organization is not in the business of selling health insurance in Florida. But they act as middleman for health insurance agents in Florida. They will mostly provide you with the lead information of 5-10 health insurance agents.
3. Insurance company’s websites: this websites managed and runs by health insurance companies. It has lots of information out of which most of the information is irrelevant for your purpose. Searching the quote for particular health insurance policy in Florida is very time consuming and often frustrating.

Decide which type of websites is suitable to you considering what type of information you want. When asking for quote you should be very specific and explicit about your requirements. When you receive the information, it may be in such a way that you are able to compare different prices of different health insurance companies at a glance. The format usually followed by most companies is more or less same. They show you different companies quote side by side.

Before entering in to the guideline of reaping money from Worksite marketing, let us look at the recent scenario of Worksite marketing. Worksite marketing has seen many ups and downs in past. In the year 2005 and 2004 Worksite marketing has seen ups, while in the year 2006 that is last year Worksite marketing has been on down side. The overall down slide includes the 2 % drop in premiums of Health insurance and 8% drops in the Life insurance premiums.

The main important thing in Worksite marketing is commission. Different insurance plans pay different percentage of commission. Highest commission earner may be Voluntary Payroll Deduction plans; high executive may earn 2 to 3 percentage commission on sales. Generally the premiums for VPD plan is often low but the volume is very large.

The commission for VPD varies from different Insurance companies, but usually it is in the range of 40 percentages to 90 percentages. It is not uncommon for companies who are in Worksite marketing to earn six figure incomes. This type of income with the possibilities of constant growth attracts many advisors to the arena of Worksite marketing.

Next thing in Worksite marketing is to find the suitable clients. Following are some of the ways to find good clients.

1. Pick up the producer that specializes in pension products, property and health, than try to make them your partner. This producer will give you employers and in turn you supply them with non-competing supplement.
2. Seminar attendance is very profitable. Find out the host of seminars and ask them whether it is possible to keep small booths at the venue of seminar.
3. Similarly keep the booths at other events, which are related to health, like health fairs etc.

Once you have found out a client, ask him several questions and find out whether they have offered Voluntary benefits to their employees. Also find out how many employees are in their company and what are the average earnings of employees.

After receiving the answer for above questions evaluate the employer and decide whether he/she is a suitable client or not. Once you have decided the client, next thing is to educate your client. Offer him different options, which benefit their employees. Lastly follow up with the employees.

IRS Tax Code SAVES YOU MONEY

It is surprising but true that Section 125 IRS Tax Code outlined the benefits available for employees of small business, but these benefits are most unused and underrated. The Section 125 IRS Tax Code is some time called cafeteria plan. With the help of this plan employees withhold some of their salary amount before tax. They can utilize this amount to purchase particular insurance plan for them and their children. As these expanses are exempted from state and federal income tax, if planned properly according to Section 125 IRS Tax Code than it is possible that employees will increase the amount of their take home money.

Basically there are three types of benefits available under Section 125 IRS Tax Code for employees.

1. Flexible Spending Accounts: Also known as FSA, which allows the employees to pay from employee’s pre tax salary, the medical expenditures or dependant care expanses that are not covered under their regular Insurance. Examples of FSA are expanses incurred for prescription drugs, expanses for contact lenses and many more.
2. Premium Only Plan: Also known as POP, which allows employee to with hold particular amount from their salary before tax. This amount is use for purchasing the Insurance plan or premium payment. POP plan of Section 125 IRS Tax Code is the simplest and hassle free plan once it is implemented through the payroll of employees.
3. Depending FSA: This is little known and used plan under Section 125 IRS Tax Code. This plan allows the employee to spend their pre tax salary to childcare or parent care facilities.

Most employees does not aware of this benefits that saves them up to $ 5,000 per year, as this is the limit set by Section 125 IRS Tax Code. There are some formalities and procedures that have to be observed in order to take benefits from Section 125 IRS Tax Code.

For employer point of view the cost of maintaining and operating different procedure to take benefit for employee from Section 125 IRS Tax Code is negligible once the routine is set up.

MORE HEALTH INSURANCE ADVICE

Purchasing health insurance can be a tricky affair. There are many kinds of insurance policies in Florida, Individual Florida Health Insurance, Florida Group Health Insurance, Florida Dental Insurance, Florida Maternity Insurance, Florida Health Savings Accounts, Florida Temporary Health Insurance, and Florida Child-Only Health Insurance.

Individual Florida Health Insurance is deemed to be expensive which makes it unaffordable to most people. Also, relatively healthy applicants alone are accepted. Some of the illnesses that are given an automatic decline are cancer, colitis, some diseases of the heart, Hepatitis C, etc…

Florida Group Health Insurance plans have premiums that have been increasing every year. Group health insurance costs a lot because it is usually sold to a group of less than 50 which means that coverage cannot be denied no matter how many people really claim it. This is the case when insurance is sold to small groups.

Dental Insurance is offered in the form of a discounted fee for a particular service plan. This means that while you pay premiums every month each of the dental procedures is offered on a discounted basis. 20% - 25% discount is normally offered on each procedure. Some of the Dental Insurance providers are Preferred Provider Organization, Dental Health Maintenance Organization, and Combo Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) & Indemnity Plans.

Florida Maternity Insurance is an insurance that is quite affordable. A flat fee is available for c-section and normal deliveries. $2200 and $3500 are offered for vaginal deliveries. All insurance plans have a waiting period of 9 to 15 months. Florida Maternity Insurance Plan offers a full coverage of pre-natal and delivery charges. Co-insurance is not available but there is full coverage after the deductibles.

Florida Health Savings Accounts (HSA) offer tax-exemption and the insurance premium fall in the lower range. HAS is a custodial or trust account. Health care expenses and medical insurance are both covered under HSA. A conforming health insurance plan is all what one needs to avail the services of HSA. Even the unemployed class can have an HSA.

Florida Short-term or Temporary Insurance Plans are complete medical plans. They can even be issued within 24 hours. They cannot be used in case of prolonged illness or hospitalization and any uninsured condition cannot be claimed for.

Florida Health Insurance for Children is a good option for people from low income groups. The parent or guardian is the applicant. This is applicable even for the new born as long as at least one member of the family is insured. Some of the common insurance plans for children are KidCare Medicaid, MediKids, Florida Healthy Kids, and Children's Medical Services Network.

Health Insurance Laws Protects

Every Floridian has many rights for heath insurance under the State as well as Federal law. This will protects them when they are buying, switching or keeping health Insurance. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act shortened to HIPAA is the most important federal act that dictates standards related to most of the health plans nationally. Apart from this States also allows different reforms related to health plans which are regulated by them. If you leave Florida than the same protection may not available in different states. Florida is well known for its expanded protection for some of the health programs beyond the requirements of the federal law.

Like in many other States of America, Florida’s health insurance is largely depends upon person’s present health status. If a person is in not good health, than also the law of Florida protects him by

1. Nondiscrimination: Due to person’s health condition, they are not required to pay more, limited or denied.
2. It is not possible to cancel health insurance on the ground that person becomes sick. Majority of Florida health insurance is compulsorily renewable.
3. COBRA continuation coverage: It protects anyone who leaves his or her job with group health insurance for certain period of time.
4. Conversion Policy: In Florida if someone looses group health plan coverage, than they can buy conversion policy.
5. Medicaid health program: Florida has special Medicaid health program for the person of low or middle income. This health plan is subsidized or free which covers person and their family.

Apart form this there are many areas where Florida health authority protects residents of Florida. However the Federal and Florida state law has limitations also, like if some one change jobs than health law does not force new employer to offer them health benefits or if some one start new job with health benefits than health law does not force employer to start health benefits right away. Health law of Florida allows for the Waiting or Affiliation periods. These are some of the limitations and protections of Florida health insurance law, for full understanding of this laws consult a good health insurance attorney.

Florida Health Insurance Consultation

Comparison of Health insurance plans

There are many different health insurance plans available in America that one get confused. Recently many health insurance plans under go drastic changes. Now person has so many choices of health insurance plans to choose from. Some of the more common health insurance plans are PPO, HMO, Fee For Service, MSA and others. Most of the health insurance policies classified in to two categories. First category is known as Indemnity care plans; while other category is known as managed care plans. The basic difference between this two health insurance plans is the way you are provided the health care when you are in need.

Managed care health insurance plan

The category of Managed health insurance plan emphasize mainly on prevention. The health insurance under this category is comparatively less expensive. But main disadvantage is person is restricted to use particular health providers. On the other hand Indemnity health insurance category plan is comparatively expensive but person is covered completely in case of any illness or any type of accident. Other benefit of Indemnity health insurance plan is person has liberty to select the services of whatever health care institutions or Doctors they like.

Recently there is a new type of health insurance introduced, which is actually the combination of Managed health care and Indemnity health care categories. This health plan is called PPO health plan or Preferred Provider organization plan. Due to more flexibility and moderately priced, PPO health plan is fast becoming popular. PPO health plan like managed care health insurance plan emphasis on preventive aspects, that is routine check ups but at the same time person has freedom of selecting the Doctor for their routine check up.

What are the different implications of two categories of health plan when you fell ill?

If you are covered by Indemnity health insurance plan than you can go to any medical care institution or you can visit the doctor of your choice for treatment. But if you are insured with Managed care health insurance plan, than it is quit possible that you may be diagnose far early for any serious diseases. Since you are doing routine check ups frequently, which is duly covered by the managed care health insurance policy. You have to select from the list of provider and than visit them for routine check ups.

Affordable Health Insurance Plans
Low-Cost Florida Health Insurance