Reader question:
Who needs temporary health insurance?
Rebecca
Great question.
- People in between one job and the next. It is often the case that you will leave a job or be laid off from a job that provides you with health insurance coverage, and find yourself without that coverage while you are looking for another job. This is where short term health insurance comes in. It is true that COBRA law allows you to continue your coverage from your old company for up to thirty six month until the coverage at your next job kicks in, but COBRA premiums tend to cost a lot and you will probably want to avoid them. Getting short term health insurance will help you avoid those high costs and allow you to be well covered until the coverage from your next job comes along.
- College grads. After you graduated from your college or university, the dream job that you spent all of those years studying for doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere. You have to look for it and try for it, and often it isn’t even available to you, despite your education, until you get a lot more real world experience. You may be forced to stick with a job that is less quality and does not provide you with any kind of health insurance coverage. You can get temporary health insurance while you’re looking for a better job. Also consider getting cheaper health insurance through your alumni association.
- When you’re growing up. If a teenager turns eighteen and isn’t enrolled in school or college full time, they will usually be dropped from their parents’ health insurance plan. Although COBRA laws do apply in this situation, too, it is true that these premiums costs quite a bit and it’s a better idea for the teen to get short term health insurance coverage until they make it into a job that provides them with coverage or get a different kind of plan.
- Miscellaneous reasons. There are plenty of other people who get short term health insurance for plenty of reasons, not just those listed above. Some just aren’t ready to commit to a full time insurance policy.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Reader question:
Who needs temporary health insurance?
Rebecca
Great question.
- In between one job and the next. Short term health insurance plans are often the only kind that will accept the kind of needer of health insurance that does not have any current employment. Most health insurance plans do require you to have a job so that they can know that you can make your payments, but since temporary health insurance is often paid month to month, this isn’t such a problem. This is also often used by someone who has started a new job and their health insurance for that job is not yet available to them, so they get short term health insurance in order to avoid paying higher COBRA premiums while waiting for employer coverage to kick in.
- College grads. This is another main group that tends to opt for temporary health insurance for awhile. Once you have graduated form college, it’s often he case that it may take awhile for you to get a great job that provides you with health insurance coverage, so while you’re searching, you can get temporary health insurance to keep protected. If you don’t want to go for this option and are looking for something that last