Self Employed Health Insurance

We, the Forbes Insurance Agency, can relate first hand to the challenges you face managing your business: sales growth, keeping up with payroll, making those withholding tax payments, paying rents on time, leasing vehicles and equipment, employee retention and training, advertising and many other hats an owner has to wear.

It is not often that you hire that “special team of personnel” who share your vision and passion, and collectively the company takes shape and emerges as an economic engine. When you do though, these are the employees who you need to protect, and providing health insurance in today’s environment is a large line item number on the balance sheet. Insurance is one of the methods small business owners adopt to retain their employees.

People who work for themselves come in all different shapes, sizes, ages, and incomes. Consequently, there's no one-size-fits-all approach to self employed health insurance for Americans. You need to evaluate both your current situation and your business's future before you choose a health plan.

People who work for themselves run the gamut of trades, ages, and incomes. Consequently, there's no one-size-fits-all approach to health insurance for us out-of-the-box thinking risk-takers. You need to evaluate both your current situation and your business's future before you choose a health plan.

 Here are four common situations:

#1 You're a one-man (or one-woman!) show, and don't foresee your employee roster growing in the near future.  In this case, your best bet is probably a standard individual policy. The first choice you'll have to make is to decide between an indemnity and a managed care plan.

#2 If you're working on your own, but see that situation changing in the near future (whether you'll be hiring more help or expect to be hired by a larger organization yourself), a temporary policy might be a better option. These plans are fairly inexpensive, and you won't have to make much of a commitment. (This option is strictly temporary though - don't use this type of plan as a substitute for permanent coverage.)

#3 Health insurance for the self-employed plus a few employees is a more complicated matter. If you employ between 2 and 50 people, chances are you qualify for (and would benefit from) a group health insurance plan.

#4 Finally, there's health insurance for the self-employed who fall somewhere in between, (a business run by you and your spouse, for example). These special situations have to be evaluated on a case-by case basis. We have more information on this a little further down on this page.

The first step is to evaluate your needs and understand your health-insurance options. Sometimes a group policy works, but often times the option of individual policies for each employee is best. Offering individual health insurance to your employees we can design individual plans or family plans that can be fine-tuned to each person’s situation…whether an HSA high deductible, or a Co-pay for a young family with children…the options are almost limitless.

Self-Employed Health Insurance Costs & Benefits

Healthcare today isn’t cheap. Unfortunately, that can be especially true in the case of health insurance for those self-employed and small groups. Insurance is least expensive when rates and care are pooled among a large group of people, such as a corporation with over 100 people. The larger the group, the more evenly the risk is spread.

Unfortunately, the self-employed don’t fall into that category. Often times the size of the company is yourself and a couple of other employees, not often upward of 50 people. Don’t be deceived to think your rates are lower than individual rates if you fall into this classification. The cost of premium is often calculated by that one or two people who are a “risk candidate” with serious medical conditions. The pool is not large enough to spread the risk to offer lower costs.

Often times, by offering individual insurance to the self-employed, substantial savings can be enjoyed. Plans are tailored to the individual and the high risk candidates can be offered alternative plans that do not drive the rates up for the entire population. Additionally, these individual plans can include family members and are often times portable, in that if the employee leaves the plan can go with them.

Call us at the Forbes Insurance Agency (843) 297-8162 to receive guidance and direction for your health insurance needs for your small business.