Florida Health Insurance Plans

If you are shopping for affordable Florida health insurance plans or for Florida medical insurance information, you have come to the right place! Here at BestHealthcareRates.com, we provide consumers with all of the tools and information needed to find the best Florida health insurance plans at the best prices available.

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For more information: Finding affordable Florida health insurance plans

Florida Individual Medical Insurance Plans

Florida individual medical insurance and family medical insurance in Florida is not guaranteed under Florida state insurance laws. This means that when you apply for Florida health insurance your application will be medically underwritten, allowing the medical insurance company to decide whether or not it will offer you coverage. Medical insurance companies can decline your application if they wish based on past medical history or current medical conditions.

During the underwriting process, the medical insurance company may choose one of the following responses to your application for Florida health insurance coverage;

1) they may decline coverage because of information provided in your medical insurance application,
2) they may offer to you medical insurance coverage, but with limits on pre-existing medical conditions or
3) they may approve your application for full coverage as submitted in your application. Premium rates may vary depending upon the age of the applicant and geographical area.

This process does make it more difficult for health insurance shoppers to find the most affordable medical insurance in Florida. If your health insurance application is approved for coverage, the insurance company is required to recognize creditable coverage from a prior medical insurance plan, which must be applied to the 24 month pre-existing exclusionary period on the new policy. Creditable coverage does not apply to any waivers which the insurance company may have been written into the policy due to pre-existing conditions.

Florida KidCare
Florida KidCare is the state sponsored Florida medical insurance for children between the ages of 5 - 18 of low-income families.

Florida Small Group Health Insurance

In Florida, small employer groups are defined as groups of 1 - 50 employees. A small group consisting of just one employee is eligible for guaranteed insurance coverage during the annual open enrollment periods only. During the month of August, applications for the annual open enrollment are accepted, and health insurance policies are issued with an effective date of October 1.

Florida Group medical insurance policies, for groups of 2 - 50 are guaranteed issue. A waiting period may be required by employers before new employees become eligible for the employers group plan. When this waiting period has been completed, you become eligible to join the group medical plan in Florida, your coverage is guaranteed and the insurance company cannot decline to insure you or alter the coverage in any way because of your past medical history. However, Group health insurance companies can impose a 6-month look back/12-month exclusionary period for pre-existing conditions on employees that did not have prior creditable coverage.

Minimum employee participation could be required, requiring a minimum percentage of eligible employees be included on the plan. The insurance company may adjust rates by no more than 15% over the standard published rate and are based on the overall health status of the employees enrolling in the plan.

COBRA and Continuation Health Insurance Coverage in Florida

Employers with 20 or more employee must abide by the Federal COBRA laws. Florida also has a mini-COBRA regulation which applies to groups of 20 or less and is the same as federal COBRA regulations with the exception that if an employee becomes disabled while on COBRA, they can extend their health insurance coverage for an additional 11 months. An employee need only be active on the employer group health plan for one day to be eligible COBRA coverage.

Florida regulations allows a premium rate that is 15% higher than the premium rate paid by the employer, the employee must accept coverage within 30 from date of termination. For those that have exhausted their COBRA coverage, conversion plans are available.

Under the Florida Health Insurance Coverage Continuation Act it is mandatory for insurance companies operating in the state of Florida to offer 18 months of continuation coverage to employees of groups with 2-19 employees. An employee must request this extension within 30 days of losing their group coverage.