Can they really do this?

Deborah1965

We own a small business (4 employees), my insurance company is raising my healthcare premium by $6,000 a year because of BC in 2009. GEEZ!  Stating they have paid out more in "09 than we paid in.

redskies

Hi, sorry to hear this has happenend, afraid I don't know the answer, but I wanted to let you know there is a new forum for questions about insurance etc., under "Day to Day Matters," maybe someone there might know.  Good luck!

hymil

uh don't they understand the first principle of insurance... How it works is that loads of people at low risk of a bad event each, pay a small premium each, and they collect it all and give it to the one-in-a-lot who actually gets the nasty event (having first taken off their profit) It's not an individual savings scheme.....

LisaAlissa

Hi Deborah, sorry to hear this.  I'm not clear on a couple of things from your post.  Is your insurance through your business?  If so, is your business it's own group? or it is part of a larger group?  Is it only your premium quote which has gone up? or the premium quote for everyone in your company? 

hymil, you're exactly right, but this is part of the reason health insurance reform is so important.  Many employers employees are their own group.  If the group is small enough, then the claims experience of any one person can have a significant impact on the premiums charged to all group members.  My employer had around 500 employees and was it's own group.  We had a couple of insureds who had significant claims, and it raised premiums for everyone in the group.

I'd check w/ your insurance broker and try to find out more details about why your insurance costs are going up.  Perhaps your group could merge into a larger group?  A small business insurance broker may be able to help you with that.  But for a group to take you on, you may still have higher premiums than you have had.  The question is, will the group be able to "afford" to take you into the group, given your medical underwriting history.

Or are you going to an individual policy to keep costs down for the others in the group? (although I don't know if that would work that way...)

Just some thoughts,

LisaAlissa