No Deductible Plans

[somarco]

When BX of GA imported the Right Plan from CA I sold quite a few of those plans to mostly young, singles. The price was right. At that time it was less than the popular Value 2000.

Then the premiums began to rise and rise and rise.

I no longer have any clients on RP.

Now we have Tonik, another CA import. Not a no deductible but has some very attractive benefits and 100% above the deductible. Also underpriced.

I have written about a dozen since it came to GA last year. I expect most of those will be rolled to something else, probably with a different carrier, within the next 2 years.

Most clients are short sighted and there is not much you can do about it. Their own ignorance can kill them financially when the big one hits.

That's why they buy plans with annual caps, daily R&B caps, no brand Rx coverage, Rx copay + coinsurance, annual limits on Rx, plans with copays and low deductibles.

For some reason a high deductible ($5000) 100% plan scares them but they are more comfortable with a plan that has a $2000 deductible, coinsurance up to $2000 OOP and copays . . . even though the lower deductible plan has a 30% lower premium.

It is befuddling what consumers are willing to pay and not improve their situation from a financial viewpoint. They pay more, they just don't get any more coverage.

 

[K-Dub]

So in a scenario like this

Click this link to view report you would have to tell a client to pay an extra $416.66 a month for their HSA to get the best plan? I'm guessing that was a joke to prove a point, I could never do it!

So an Aetna benefit rich plan would be $328 for $5K in risk, and a BCBS plan would then be $774. Good luck with that one!

 

[TXINSURANCE]

HSA plans are simply not priced low enough to make sense for the average family who is conditioned to co-pays. The self employed person might grasp the concept only if they are affluent. Your broke Internet customer or person who lost their job at the mall is not interested in saving 20% premium for a catastrophic plan. Remember 50% of Americans do not have $1000 in savings by some reports. I would go as far as to say that number is about 80% for my Internet only transitional, young client base.

Also the first time the family with 3 kids takes little Joey to the doctors for sniffles and finds out there is no co-pay she gets back on the Internet and switches plans.

I am also of the opinion that 90% of my clients do not ask or care much about OOP maxes, but you better believe co-pays, and preventative care come up on every call, because this is how they are conditioned on benefit rich group plans.

I spent many years trying to sell HSA's and found it to be a complete waste of time and energy and little retention on those cases sold. I am 100% online though - face to face or self-employed is a different ball game.

I have a HSA for my family - I like it, but I also own a business and am not broke (yet). My big issue with HSA's / HRA is the market is very limited ONLINE since the client is not affluent enough to grasp the concept and the premium price breaks are not there.