3 Primary Types of Insurance Plans You Can Purchase
If you are in a situation where you need to purchase your own insurance, here are three different types of insurance plans that you are going to be able to purchase on your own.
#1 Catastrophic Plans
Catastrophic plans are aged-based health care plans. You have to be under the age of 30 in order to qualify for a catastrophic plan. Like the name suggests, this level of insurance will really only kick in if something really major happens to you. The insurance premium is really low, but the deductible is extremely high. The amount of things that are covered are also limited to more serious conditions, such as things like cancer or accident injuries.
The percent that the insurance pays before you reach your out-of-pocket maximum contributed, which is different than your deductible, is quite high. The entire idea behind catastrophic insurance is to make sure that you have insurance should anything terrible happen to you and to meet the insurance requirement for the federal government while keeping your costs as low as possible.You cannot use any government subsidy to purchase this type of health care plan.
#2 Major Medical
The next type of health care plan are major medical plans. Major medical plans are not sold on the Obamacare Marketplace exchange. These types of medical plans are sold by private companies and plans that you can generally opt-into throughout the year, not just during the enrollment period for marketplace based plans. Oftentimes, many of the same companies that operate on the Obamacare Marketplace also offer off-market major medical insurance.
Major medical plans that are not sold on the market do not qualify for the subsidies that are offered to individual who buy on the market. If you don't qualify for a subsidy anyways, you may want to look into the off-market plans as they have to meet all of the same standards of Affordable Care Act coverage benefits, but just are not subsidized at all.
#3 Obamacare Or Affordable Care Act Marketplace
Finally, you can purchase insurance on what is commonly referred to as the "marketplace" which is where insurance companies that will accept government subsidies put their insurance plans up for your to purchase. These websites are setup to help you easily figure and apply for subsidies and take into account your subsidies when calculating your premium. These marketplaces are often easier to search and use, and allow you to compare insurance companies and plans side-by-side.
The biggest downside to the marketplace is that there is a limited enrollment window every year outside of special circumstances, such as losing your insurance or getting married. For more information, visit a website such as http://continsurance.com/.