- Group or Individual Health Insurance

Small Business Owner Choices

Small business owners with five or fewer employees may have more health insurance options for their employees than they realize. A common misconception among these owners is that they should buy group health insurance because it is cheaper. Often, that is not the case.

In the right circumstances purchasing each of your employees an individual health insurance policy can be dramatically cheaper than a group policy. Group health insurance must be offered to everyone without regard to health problems. As a result the cost of insuring healthy individuals in the group will be higher to offset the additional costs of unhealthy ones who will require more doctor and hospital care. If your employees are healthy (and their family members, if you intend to insure them as well) each individual will apply for his or her own policy. Because of everyone’s good health, less expensive policies can be purchased. In this case each employee "owns" his or her own policy, even if the employer is picking up the cost.

Individual policies won’t work for every small business. In many instances all employees except for one are healthy. Presumably, no employer would be indifferent to the one employee who was unable to qualify for an individual policy. An additional complication can arise when all employees have their individual policies, but a potential new hire wouldn’t be able to qualify for one.

Selecting the right choice for your business requires a careful examination of your insurance needs. This is a situation in which a good, professional health insurance agent should be able to help you. As it so happens, that’s a category to which we proudly belong. Of course, we would be happy to help you.

Feel free to call me (1-888-323-8832) or e-mail me at quotes@lowcostpahealthinsurance.com.