Health Insurance Question

Status
Not open for further replies.
deStone

deStone

New member
Oct 5, 2007
179
2
0
Overland Park, KS
My soon-to-be brother and law and I are kicking around the idea of starting a full-time benefits company that provides Health Insurance (Mostly High Deductible Health Plans + HSAs) to IT Consultants, specifically freelance Internet Marketers. If it was completely online enrollment, relatively hands-off, and good rates, who would be interested in something like that? Or do most of you guys use your significant other as a source of health insurance?

Just curious. Post your thoughts.
 


I would probably be interested. After I quit my job to go AM full time they wanted over $600 a month for COBRA. Can you believe that? Thats just one single 22 year old person with no pre-existing problems. If you had a family its $4,000 a month with no pre-existing problems.

4K a month? who the hell can afford that with a normal job?

Anyway I was lucky enough to get signed up with bluecross. I'd be interested in hearing about what kind of plans you would be able to offer. Oddly enough I also do IT consulting.
 
Freelance Union -- for most states it just sends you to an individual health insurance company to apply.

The original idea of creating an association with access to individual health insurance, perhaps with some sort of group negotiated rates, is not a bad one, but has been done. Targetting IT people is also a good idea.

In my state, association health insurance is really just individual health insurance. Plus are you licensed in all 50 states?

I would need more information to evaluate your proposal, but I doubt you can perform a miracle.

I am a reformed life/health insurance agent who has crossed over to the light side of the force of affiliate marketing. With the current state of individual health, I would never want to get involved in that mess again. But that's me.
 
I have saved myself from paying out over $75,000 so far by not having health insurance and just putting that money away in a seperate account instead. I have not had to visit a doctor in over 10 years. :eek:
 
Netphase said:
I have saved myself from paying out over $75,000 so far by not having health insurance and just putting that money away in a seperate account instead. I have not had to visit a doctor in over 10 years. :eek:
Click to expand...

Not even yearly checkups?
 
Netphase said:
I have saved myself from paying out over $75,000 so far by not having health insurance and just putting that money away in a seperate account instead. I have not had to visit a doctor in over 10 years. :eek:
Click to expand...

That's what my friends cousin said. Two weeks later, dead.
 
The concept of the HSA Is that its a tax-free vehicle to store money incase you ever did get sick. Yeah, you have to pay some $ for a high deductible health plan, but compared to dumping insane amounts of money into a traditional plan, seems like a good deal to me....

Yes, he can do all 50 states. I would handle the technical side of the deal for him.
 
Netphase said:
I have saved myself from paying out over $75,000 so far by not having health insurance and just putting that money away in a seperate account instead. I have not had to visit a doctor in over 10 years. :eek:
Click to expand...

I've been preaching that to business's for quite some time. The health insurance companies rape the small business man.

If a company had a policy where the worker contributed X amount, then the company could just keep all their own money... wait until the bank account reaches a million bucks, and then pass out the contribution excess every year.
 
Netphase said:
I have saved myself from paying out over $75,000 so far by not having health insurance and just putting that money away in a seperate account instead. I have not had to visit a doctor in over 10 years. :eek:
Click to expand...

That's what I thought, until I got sick.

You'll go through that $75k in no time if you get real sick.
 
Gumby's right. $10K a month for not-so-serious health problems isn't uncommon in some places. Health insurance is absolutely necessary IMO, and IME.

and to the OP, yes I'd be interested. The more competition, the merrier. GL!
 
bluebuddha said:
Gumby's right. $10K a month for not-so-serious health problems isn't uncommon in some places.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I ran up a $65k bill the first month.

I'd be interested in the insurance, but pre-existing conditions kinda f@ck it up for me now.
 
Dunno why there aren't more medical tourism companies instead. The main teaching hospitals in India are replicas of the british nhs ones for example (hangover from the raj).
 
Unless you are just pure reselling (can you even private-label health insurance? I'd be surprised), there's no way you're going into all 50 with your own ops.

Individual health is a *very* tough business. The individual market has been good to the big players for the better part of this decade, but medical cost ratios are creeping back up.

I'd be curious to know your angle if it isn't reselling or brokering, b/c one state alone is near impossible to break into on less than high 7 figures.

edit: or possibly you're handling the HSAs and bundling with an HDHP provider? that makes a lot more sense and would be far easier to launch I would think since licensing, actuarial expertise, network contracting, and the massive amount of cash or cash-like instruments you have to hold on the books as an insurer are no longer an issue. Of course, forming a bank isn't easy either, but in comparison I imagine it is.
 
I have bank connections for handling the HSA and administration. I would only sell HDHP insurance. I dont want to get into providing what i call "normal" insurance. I'm trying to build a model for a consumer driven health --- doctor price comparison, etc.
 
Ah, gotcha. The electronic health record & transactional transparency side of things is still pretty wide open. There are a lot of big names in the space, but no real solutions. A lot of that has to do with fucked up dynamics and distorted incentives rather than lack of effort or expertise. But I'm sure you already know that if you're for real about doing this.

Self-employed IT workers is probably a good demographic for the psychographic profile of who would dig that kind of product, but maybe not so much on the medical consumption side, who knows.

I'm not sure I would go the insurance route to tackle it, but good luck to you. Whoever gets it right and can go to market intelligently will make a killing.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom