Florida Group Health Insurance Plans

Florida Group Health Insurance Consulting - Free

If you are searching for an affordable group health insurance plan, you can stop right now. You need to be made aware of some hard, cold facts.

1. If you have group insurance now from a major carrier (i.e., Blue Cross, Aetna, etc.) and you are now on a quest to find lower rates, you have a nearly impossible task in front of you. They hit everyone with astronomical rate increases.

2. The huge rate increases you got this year will be repeated next year and the year after. You will need to get creative and work with a group health insurance specialist to get the premiums back down.

Enough of this good news. If you can accept this and have gone beyond the denial stage, you are ready to explore some new concepts in group health insurance.

I have some solutions to the Florida group health insurance premium problem

We offer a variety of solutions:

Florida Group Indemnity Plans (Groups of 51+ only)

Using an indemnity plan for Florida group health insurance can stabilize your premiums for years to come. The core of these plans are professionally managed indemnity insurance that pay specific amounts based on a schedule. The per employee cost is approximately $125 a month for a non-voluntary group.

This plan does have limitations and is not suitable for all industries. Generally, we use it for low wage employees. However, with the addition of an Excess Loss plan, the limitations are removed. Now you have a plan suitable for all levels of employees and you still can keep the costs far below traditional alternatives.

Partially Self-Funded Plan (Groups of 21+)

If you want a Florida group health insurance plan with a PPO option, this plan will easily beat all other competition. The catch is that the group needs to be relatively healthy. By that I mean if you have an employee that is producing hundreds of thousands of dollars in claims each year, this plan will not work for you. On the other hand, if you have an average group with average claims, you should get a quote for this alternative. It is an A rated company with all the bells and whistles you would expect from a national PPO plan.

You can have employees in other states, you can cover them with this plan. We have companies that have saved 20- 30 percent on premiums.

Florida Group Health Insurance for Groups of 4 or more

If you have four or more employees and either have a Florida group health insurance plan or want to obtain one, you will quickly find out that it is very expensive. We can offer the following suggestions:

1. We can write some excellent PPO plans with a higher deductible. You will still have the low copays for doctor visits and prescriptions

2. We can use an MSA plan. However, this plan is medically underwritten and will not cover pre-existing conditions

3. Individual insurance plans are much cheaper than Florida group health insurance. In many instances we write individual plans for the employees. Again, medically underwritten and pre-ex are not covered.

Florida Group Health Insurance for Groups of 1-3

I am going to let you in on a little secret. Insurance agents do not make enough in commission from a group of 3 or less employees to buy lunch at a fast food restaurant. The insurance companies really don't want this business and it cuts down on the applications.

1. If you have a group of 2 or 3 and you are a growing business, we will write the plan. Please remember us for your other insurance needs because it is a real pain in the butt to do a small group and we do not get paid for it.

2. Consider the MSA or individual plans as mentioned above.

Lower Florida Group Health Insurance Costs with an HRA
(Health Reimbursement Arrangement)

It should be obvious to everyone that moving from a lower deductible to a higher deductible will bring down the cost of health insurance. However, you might have an employee mutiny on your hands. This is where the HRA comes in.

With an HRA you put money into a spending account for the employee. They use this money to pay for medical expenses, voluntary health insurance, etc. This is entirely employer funded and the unspent money is carried over and not lost.

The HRA is authorized under section 105 of the Internal Revenue Code. This allows the employer to reimburse most employees for medical expenses on a tax-deductible basis. The HRA was expanded in July of 2002 (IRS ruling 2002-41 and notice 2002-45), which allows the option to roll over unused reimbursements for future use, by the employees. The plan is usually set up to reimburse for medical expenses associated with a health plan like doctors visits, prescriptions, etc. The plan can be designed to reimburse for other expenses under sect. 213d which include vision tests, dental, orthodontics, and much more. The great part about theses plans are that you design them. You control of how you want the plan to perform.

With the guidance of a good agent, the employer can see the effect of self-funding versus the savings in premium. For example, an employer might pay the first $500 of un reimbursed medical expenses from the HRA. The next $1,000 might be the responsibility of the employee. Afterwards, the plan kicks in and pays for all remaining expenses.

There are numerous scenarios that can be played out with this type of arrangement and we have plans that will complement them to produce the desired results.