The Individual Major Medical Market

There was an article in FLORIDA UNDERWRITER this month about the rebounding of the Individual Health Insurance market in Florida. I don’t know about you, but this is a market I won’t quit, but the days of me going out to someone’s home to go over an individual policy purchase are about 99.5% over. There is a sales assistant in my office who normally handles this, and many of the quotes are sent via e-mail. Face to face selling is done at the home court. On rare occasions, if someone is nearby our office or my home, a home visit will be done.

Due to the time necessary to sell one policy vs. a group with several lives to cover that has virtually no underwriting for medical, and the decision maker being the owner, one might wonder why write individual health insurance at all. Yet there are a lot of employers that offer no benefits and many self employed people who want a relatively inexpensive policy.

The article in the Underwriter magazine talks about Aetna entering the Individual market. By the way, if you haven’t seen the product yet, it looks quite promising. Like Blue Cross and Humana, it follows Florida guidelines, and is not one of those out of state association plans. These three carriers have proven that you can follow Florida regulations and still offer a well priced plan for the consumer. This article also has a list of the top individual carriers offering coverage in Florida whether they are in state or out of state plans like Golden Rule. Categories are In State plans, out of state plans, and individual HMO plans. In case you are not familiar with this company, Preferred Medical Plans is listed with the highest amount of members, and they do not even write group, or have much of a network in Broward.