COVID-19 Coverage!
What is Cancel For Any Reason (including COVID-19)
The only way one could call off a trip if you change your mind would be if you purchased Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) coverage. There is a window of time where you have to purchase the CFAR coverage, otherwise it is no longer an option.
What is Emergency Medical Evacuation and Repatriation?
What is Emergency Medical Evacuation and Repatriation? There are few people who know the true meaning of evacuation and repatriation.
If you are injured or hospitalized while you are on a trip overseas, it is possible that location does not have the appropriate facilities to treat you.
What the heck is a pre-existing condition?
What the heck is a pre-existing condition?
One of the most important things to understand when considering a travel medical plan, is whether or not it covers a pre-existing condition(s). A pre-existing condition is anything you have or take medication for, saw the doctor for, have symptoms of, prior to the day that you start your travel medical insurance policy. Just because you haven’ t gone to the doctor yet, if you felt poorly with stomach pain for the last couple days, you couldn’t buy a travel medical policy and go to the doctor for your stomach issues. All travel insurance plans will cover new things that happen after your coverage starts. If you need to see a doctor for a pre-existing condition while on your trip, there are fewer plans available that will cover those issues.
Medical Evacuation from Haiti
Medical Evacuation from Haiti
Most of us are aware of the devastating Haiti earthquake of January 2010. Now, six years and several deadly storms later—including the most recent Hurricane Matthew—the country is still in desperate need of humanitarian, financial and rebuilding aid. But even prior to the earthquake, this impoverished island nation was a popular destination for the humanitarian and church organizations we at Insurance Services of America regularly insure.
One such organization, Bettendorf Christian Church in Iowa, sent a small group of women to Haiti on a mission trip. Not long after their arrival, the earthquake rocked the country and badly injured one of the church’s volunteers. Peggy Wilson suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs when an 8-foot wall fell on her.
Our Client’s Heroic Navy SEAL Rescue
Dr. Dilip Joseph, a client of Insurance Services of America, realized his life’s dream to provide overseas humanitarian aid when he became the Medical Director at Morning Star Development. In 2012, the Colorado-based organization sent Dr. Joseph to remote, war-torn villages in Afghanistan on a humanitarian mission. The rewarding work was not, however, without its dangers…to say the least.
On a cold December morning in 2012, while traveling to Kabul, armed Taliban soldiers intercepted and kidnapped the doctor and two native colleagues. In his riveting account, Dr. Joseph shares the horror and ultimate triumph of his ordeal in his book Kidnapped By the Taliban: A Story of Terror, Hope, and Rescue by SEAL Team Six (available at Amazon.com).
The kidnapping and resulting hostage situation necessitated the deployment of special Navy SEAL Team Six, which only months before had successfully pulled off one of the most famous operations in US combat history: the capture and execution of Osama Bin Laden. The mission was dangerous, true, but Ed Byers, Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL/FMF/SW), was prepared to fulfill his duty to rescue Dr. Joseph.
A Surprising Alternative for Those Who Might Refuse ObamaCare!!
A Surprising Alternative for Those Who Might Refuse ObamaCare!!
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Then they elected to put in a penalty (or is it a tax? – hold on – now they are calling it a fee) for being uninsured to try to “encourage” people to get in the system and stay in. But the penalties are much less than the cost of coverage, especially in the first few years. Even then as it stands right now, the IRS has no authority to go after someone’s assets or wages in order to collect the penalty (or tax or fee). It only has the authority to deduct the penalty from a person’s tax refund at year’s end.
But just because millions of Americans may refuse to get ObamaCare qualified coverage doesn’t mean they will be uninsured. There are other options for 2014 that could very well be the answer for the ObamaCare avoiders. A great option is to purchase one of our low cost – simplified issue short-term medical plans. No the short-term major medical business has not been “killed” by ObamaCare but is very much alive and will do very well.
A short-term plan is very similar to a standard major medical plan but for a shorter period of time (depending on the state and plan up to 364 days). It is so cheap compared to ObamaCare – its simplified issue (coverage can be effective within 24 hours for those who qualify). Plus, if somewhere along the way a person develops a new serious health condition, then it might make sense to enroll in ObamaCare in order to get coverage for pre-existing conditions.
For those who enjoy the low price of a short-term may even qualify for a 2nd or 3rd plan (rewrite). ISA can also provide to you your own personalized quote/apply links for instant issue. Yes our websites ARE working just fine!
For complete information call or email Alyssa Wright or myself – also visit our web site at www.ISABrokers.com
Alyssa Wright – [email protected] – 800 647-4589
Graham Bates – [email protected]
Short Term Medical Plans are a Viable Option
Due to the health care reform regulations brought on by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), some carries are leaving the short-term medical market. However, Allied sees this as an opportunity, and we think short-term sales will grow dramatically starting in 2014. The main barrier to insurance coverage for most people is affordability. Traditional individual coverage will be increasingly expensive and unaffordable under the new ObamaCare regulations, especially for young people. Short-term products can provide a viable alternative for many and allow them to afford coverage that they might not otherwise be able to find.
“Bulletin.” A Saled and Marketing Publication From Allied National (May 2013): 2. Print.
Why Hospital Charges Vary So Much
No one should be surprised that hospital charges vary wildly, even within the same city. Prices likely vary within the same hospital, depending on who is paying. This is pure capitalism in a setting where sellers have market power: the seller maximizes profit by charging each buyer as much as he can pay, whatever the service actually costs.
Making these sticker prices public will change nothing; most people will have to go to the hospital in the network, the one that gave their insurer a “discount” that still guarantees the hospital a healthy profit. We all pay in premiums.
Read the rest of the article about Why Hospital Charges Vary So Much
Perpetual Change and the Ability to Manage It
When someone asks you what you do and you respond, “I’m in the insurance business,” do you think they have any idea what you mean? This is a confusing industry since there are so many aspects to it—from the different lines of business to the different ways policies are sold, to the different tasks within any of those specific fields.
This may be a bit self-serving, but those differences are one reason why PropertyCasualty360.com has been so successful over the last two years as we present stories from the many different vantage points in insurance, at least on the property & casualty side.
I bring this up because currently on our website is a slideshow featuring some interesting opinions on what 2013 holds for agents and brokers. One of those slides holds the views of David Bidmead, the U.S. CEO of Marsh Inc. He says:
“The insurance industry is a reflection of the world generally. For me, the new normal—something that we’ll all need to adjust to—is living in a state of perpetual change where there is no steady state. The insurance industry has historically operated on the perception that the past is a reliable indicator of the future, and yet we have suffered natural catastrophes that are described as “1-in-500-year events” occurring every year at a time when the global economy sits on a knife’s edge and companies around the world are trying to do more with less. In this environment, the ability to lead and successfully manage change is going to become an increasingly notable difference and a competitive differentiator.”
Bidmead’s take on the future comes from a brokerage perspective, but addresses the challenges insurance IT leaders face every day. We do live in a world of perpetual change and sometimes the only people who can translate those changes are the IT leaders. It is not enough for them to understand it themselves, though, they must communicate those changes as well as offer plans for the enterprise to address those changes.
Bidmead also points out that challenge insurance faces in managing events that go far beyond what the predictive models have laid out for underwriters in terms of coverage. Models are never going to predict every storm that comes our way, but they do offer guideposts on how insurers need to address possibilities.
Knowledge is the key and that can only come from the data insurers have compiled over decades of doing business. It is impossible to “manage change” without information. We are reminded of this every day when we see bad decisions made and then followed by shoulder shrugs that indicate no one knew any better.
Insurance data won’t tell you everything you need to know about catastrophes and coverages, but reasoned guesses beat shoulder shrugs every day of the week.
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