Congratulations! You’ve done it: You worked hard and made your passion into a career. Now you’re working for yourself, doing what you love.
You’re probably noticing a few changes from the corporate world. Sure, it’s great to work as your own boss, but you may miss the security of health insurance. Luckily, you have a number of options available, one of which is called supplemental health insurance. So how can individual supplemental health insurance benefit people who are self-employed?
What Is Supplemental Health Insurance?
First things first: Supplemental health insurance is just what it sounds like. It is a supplement, a smaller and more targeted alternative, to full health insurance. You are, of course, able to get full health insurance from healthcare.gov and/or your state exchange, but if you’re just starting out and trying to save money, it may be worth going for a lower-cost route.
As always, there’s no one perfect answer for everyone, so please consult a financial professional before making any decisions regarding your business and your insurance.
Supplemental Health Insurance covers specific circumstances during which you might need help paying bills.1 Some supplemental health insurance plans are broad, such as critical illness, accidental death, or dental/vision. Some are targeted to specific illnesses, the most prominent being cancer.
How Can Supplemental Health Insurance Help You?
Full health insurance is broad by necessity. It needs to cover a large number of circumstances for a large number of employees. But if for right now, your only employee is you. Supplemental health insurance can be purchased as you need it to cover specific needs, and based on your own health circumstances. Maybe you’ve got a family history of cancer, making a cancer plan worthwhile. Maybe you work around heavy machinery, in which case accidental death and dismemberment might be worth a look. Maybe you only want dental, or short-term care, or critical illness coverage.
Having a supplemental insurance policy in addition to a major medical plan, can be especially helpful to people who are self-employed because the benefits paid on many supplemental polices can be used to cover not only medical expenses, but also costs like lost wages, office rent, or the cost of hiring extra help temporarily should you get sick or insured. Having access to those benefits could make a difference in your business’s continuity.
Individual supplemental health insurance is a great cost-effective and targeted alternative if you need very specific coverage while your business takes off. Do your research: Consult with a financial professional and explore insurance companies for specific plans and rates. With luck, your business will grow so large you’ll need to offer full health insurance to a whole raft of employees down the road.
Categories: Insurance, Supplement Health Insurance