Insurance News
Major discrepancies are present between the prices paid to hospitals for privately insured patients and what the federal Medicare program pays, according to a RAND analysis of hospital prices in 25 states.
Overall, hospitals treating patients with private health insurance were paid 2.4 times the Medicare rates in 2017. RAND researchers found that the difference was most significant for outpatient care. In those cases, private prices were nearly triple what Medicare would...
If it seems like your homeowner’s insurance rates have been going up, they probably have. A new study finds that insurance rates have gone up as much as 88 percent over the last decade.
QuoteWizard, a subsidiary of LendingTree, documented the increase and blames a rash of natural disasters over the last 10 years for the rise in rates.
Insurance is all based on risk. The lower the risk of something bad happening, the lower the cost of insuring against it. But when the risk...
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Sick, elderly, and/or poor people who actually need health insurance are ruining Obamacare for the rest of us, if a common mantra of the health insurance industry is to be believed.
While not wording it quite as harshly, the health insurance industry has said that Affordable Care Act customers are making heavy use of medical services, more than the industry anticipated, costing health insurance companies revenue and explaining next year’s premium increases.
People who nee...
Whether it's total devastation from a hurricane like Harvey, or a personal disaster like a fire, or even a tree falling through the roof, most insured homeowners are eager to get their hands on an insurance check.
It's understandable, of course, but Michael Perlmuter, who heads a company representing policyholders in insurance claims settlements, advises patience. Homeowners, he says, should resist the temptation to accept the first settlement offer from an insurance com...
Forty-nine percent of people overall, and 43 percent of people with insurance said they were somewhat to completely unprepared to cope with a costly medical emergency over the coming year.
Some 16 percent had no health plan at all, including many working respondents whose jobs didnt offer insurance or who couldnt afford the premiums of deductibles of the available plan.
When added to the population of uninsured -- approximately 16% of the population -- a total of 40% of ...
A bail bondsman or bail agent is one of those people you hope you never need, but if you do, where do you look? The Internet of course, right?
That's where we look for a lot of different services these days, but doing a blind search isn't always the best way to distinguish which service or company is best. And that's certainly the case when it comes to finding a good bail agent.
"The reality is that there really isn't an established set of criteria for saying that one bai...
Progressive Insurance is airing an extensive ad campaign promoting its Snapshot device, promoting it as a way to cut your auto insurance bills. It sounds good, but it might not work out for everyone.
The humorous commercials warn of “rate suckers,” those bad drivers who get speeding tickets, get into accidents, and cut you off on the freeway. The commercials point out those bad drivers are why your insurance rates are so high.
But essentially, that's how insurance works. ...
The groups called for Congress to reject the study and ban the use of credit scoring in insurance.
Insurance credit scoring is the use by insurers of consumers credit reports for determining insurance eligibility and premiums. Unknown to most consumers, insurers use of consumer credit information has spread to almost all insurers and is one of the most important factors in determining how much a consumer pays for auto or homeowners insurance.
Previous studies by the Missou...
Allstate ranks as the worst insurer for consumers, according to a comprehensive investigation of thousands of legal documents and financial filings by the American Association for Justice, a trial lawyers' group.
The group said it based its rankings on what it found to be "a distinct pattern of insurance industry greed" among 10 companies that do everything possible to avoid paying claims, employ hardball tactics against policyholders, reward executives with extrava...
You know that anytime you buy electronics or appliances at a big box retailer the sales person is sure to offer a service plan – sometimes referred to as an extended warranty.
Consumers might think they have two choices – take the store's plan or decline and have no coverage at all, assuming all the risk of loss. But actually, there's another option.
Stacy Vogler, U.S. Managing Director of Protect Your Bubble, a British-based insurance company, says consumers can easily purchase a protection plan months after they've completed the purchase.
Third option
“If consumers purchase a product, it might be new, or might be a year or 2 old, they decide they need protection for that and they can come directly to our website,” Vogler told ConsumerAffairs. “With a few bits of information about that product, they can get a protection plan for a low monthly rate.”
Protect Your Bubble is not your father's insurance company. It doesn't insure your car or your home. Instead, the company says it protects the important things in your daily life – things like your phone, TV, or washing machine. And they can usually do it for a lot less than the planes stores offer.
Huge markup
When you buy a retailer's service contract, a lot of what you are spending goes directly to the store's bottom line. Consumer's Checkbook estimates on average, the retailer pockets more than half of the selling price of these warranties as pure profit. They use the rest to pay third-party companies to back and administer these policies.
“We offer an alternative to those retail plans,” Vogler said. “Our plans are at a low monthly rate and the more devices you protect, the lower the rate.”
For example, insurance protection for an iPhone 6 through your cell phone carrier might cost $10 or more a month. At Protect Your Bubble it's $5.99.
The more things you protect, the cheaper the rate. For example, let's assume you add 2 laptops to your phone coverage. The monthly cost for the first laptop goes down to $4.99 and the cost for the second drops to $3.99 – for a monthly total of $14.97.
Vogler says consumers should research protection plans at the same time they research the product they are buying – before they go to the store.
“With a few extra steps and a little extra time online, they should also think about protection plans,” she said. “Do a little research there before they go to the store and make an informed decision.”
Other coverage
While Protect Your Bubble doesn't offer homeowners insurance, it does provide renter's insurance policies. It also provides an identity theft prevention service, alerting subscribers to any suspicious activities involving their banking and credit.
When consumers rent cars, they usually are given just 2 options – take the rental car company's loss waiver coverage or using their personal auto insurance to protect them from damage. Protect Your Bubble's rental car insurance is a third option – and a much cheaper one, saving up to 70% on the coverage the rental car company offers.
“Where our plans cost about $7 a day, the rental car companies charge about $35 a day,” Vogler said.
You pay nothing, of course, if you decide to use your personal auto insurance, but that option could prove costly in case of an accident or damage. If you have to make a claim on your personal car insurance for damage to a rental car, deductibles apply and you can expect your premium to go up in the future.
You know that anytime you buy electronics or appliances at a big box retailer the sales person is sure to offer a service plan – sometimes referred to as an extended warranty.
Consumers might think they have two choices – take the store's plan or decline and have no coverage at all, assuming all the risk of loss. But actually, there's another option.
Stacy Vogler, U.S. Managing Director of Protect Your Bubble, a British-based insurance company, says co...
The idea behind an annuity is that, in exchange for an upfront investment, it guarantees you an agreed-upon income for the rest of your life. But annuities have never sold as well as most economists think they should and no one seems to know why.
Two Boston College marketing professors say they think they have found the answer: people don't like to think about dying.
This doesn't appear to make sense on the surface. After all, the whole idea of an annuity is that it keeps you from outliving your money -- no small concern in an era when people are routinely living into their 90s. You may be old, tired, sick, or whatever, but at least you have a few bucks coming in each month. But the process of setting up an annuity forces you to think about how long you have left and therein lies the rub, says Gergana Nenkov, Associate Professor of Marketing with the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.
"When you think about an annuity, you have to think about how long you have left to live, how many years you need to finance," says Nenkov. "You have to think about dying -- that's part of the annuity process, and when people do that, it turns them away."
Hoping it goes away
Previous explanations for Americans' poor record of annuity purchases have focused on low retirement savings, unfair pricing, and decreased flexibility in accessing one's money.
Nenkov and fellow BC professor Linda Court Salisbury say they applied psychological theory to answer the question that's usually posed in economic terms.
"Nobody has ever looked at it from the psychology of making the decision and going through with the decision," says Salisbury. "Our idea was the averseness of thinking about your own death is enough to make you use what we call 'mortality salience defense strategy,' which is to avoid it."
In other words, by not thinking about death and not planning for it, we're hoping it will go away. The theory was supported in four studies that included 748 adults.
One study asked participants whether they would rather roll their retirement savings in an Individual Retirement Account, or purchase an annuity.
"When people considered an IRA, very few thought about dying or how long they have left to live," says Nenkov. "But when the people considered an annuity, a big proportion of them had those kinds of thoughts related to death."
Two of the studies presented participants with annuity descriptions that contained subtle differences. One description indicated the annuity "guaranteed payments for as long as you live," while another "guaranteed payments for as long as you live until you die." Whenever an annuity mentioned death, interest plummeted.
"We showed that even those subtle mentions of death decreased further the rate of choosing an annuity and made people stay away from the product even more than if we just talked about years left to live," says Nenkov.
It's not just annuities, of course.
"Wills, life insurance, estate planning -- all of those decisions are sometimes put off, and we think this issue of not wanting to think about death has a role," says Nenkov. "Maybe finding ways to deal with that anxiety could help consumers overcome it and make the important decisions because if they don't, there are devastating consequences later in life."
The idea behind an annuity is that, in exchange for an upfront investment, it guarantees you an agreed-upon income for the rest of your life. But annuities have never sold as well as most economists think they should and no one seems to know why.
Two Boston College marketing professors say they think they have found the answer: people don't like to think about dying.
This doesn't appear to make sense on the surface. After all, the whole idea of an annuity is that it keep...
There is an all too familiar scenario for home purchasers and refinancers that has consistently been one of the major mortgage-related consumer complaints to state and federal agencies for the past few years -- title insurance trickery and "good faith estimates" of settlement costs that turn out to be hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars off the mark.
At least ten states are investigating alleged title insurance fraud. These investigations involve not only a numbe...
AARP presents itself as an advocacy organization for seniors and no one would deny that it vigorously lobbies Congress on behalf of seniors. But in other areas, it's sometimes a little difficult to discern just how AARP puts its members' interests first.
Take life insurance, for example. Experts say many seniors really have little need for an expensive life insurance policy, yet AARP and its partner, New York Life, write millions of dollars per year worth of term life in...
GEICO has filed suit against two major Internet search engine operators, Google Inc. and Overture Services Inc., in an effort to suppress advertising by competing insurance companies and online insurance brokers.
GEICO is claiming trademark infringement, alleging that the search engine operators violate trademark rights by allowing other insurance companies to advertise to consumers who display an interest in obtaining information relating in some way to GEICO by using th...
Studies show that when consumers are presented with information about what health services cost, they tend to make better decisions. The hard part, however, is finding out what things cost.
New research by Public Agenda, a non-profit research organization, has found that 57% of consumers with health insurance and 51% of those lacking coverage are unaware of what their health care provider charges.
Without this information, the group says, consumers can't compare prices or look for less expensive providers when they are quoted a price they can't afford.
The study found that 56% of U.S. consumers have actively looked for prices before getting care, and 21% say they have compared prices across several providers. Of that group, nearly all say the price comparison influenced their decisions and ended up saving them money.
Consumers who compare prices charged by different providers tend to get more regular medical treatment. The study shows 42% of people who have compared prices before getting care receive regular medical treatment, compared with 33% of those who have not ever sought price information before getting care.
Make it easier to discuss prices
The authors say their findings suggest consumers want price information about their health care. They urge the industry to make it easier for providers, staff and insurance company personnel to discuss prices.
“The finding that many Americans are already trying to get price information from receptionists and hospital staff, insurance companies, doctors, hospital billing departments and nurses suggests a need to strengthen these professionals’ capacity to provide and discuss price information,” the authors write.
Consumers also need assistance in knowing where to look for price information. Part of the problem is health insurance. Some providers charge different rates, depending on whether the patient has a healthcare policy, and if so, what kind. However, a federal report recently found this does not happen as much as it once did.
Here's an example of a health care provider that posts its fee schedule, for both insured and uninsured patients.
More out-of-pocket costs
Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect, health care consumers have been getting familiar with high deductible health insurance policies, according to the latest Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF).
A high deductible means the consumer pays the first $5000 or so of medical costs each year before certain aspects of the coverage kick in. It's designed to give consumers incentive to seek out lower health care prices.
But again, if consumers don't know what the care costs, and don't know where to look for the information, they aren't in a position to save money.
While ACA has made coverage more affordable, the high deductibles often mean many consumers can't afford to use their coverage.
“We assume that households pay premiums out of current income, but that they may need to use savings or other assets if they become seriously ill in order to meet the deductible or the out-of-pocket limit under their health insurance policies,” the SCF authors write. “We show that many households, in particular those with lower incomes or where someone lacks insurance, have low levels of resources that would make it difficult for them to meet health insurance cost sharing demands.”
All the more reason, it would seem, that health care consumers need an easy, transparent way to find out what things cost.
Studies show that when consumers are presented with information about what health services cost, they tend to make better decisions. The hard part, however, is finding out what things cost.
New research by Public Agenda, a non-profit research organization, has found that 57% of consumers with health insurance and 51% of those lacking coverage are unaware of what their health care provider charges.
Without this information, the group says, consumers can't compare price...
If you've decided to pick up some extra cash driving for Uber, Lyft, or any of the other so-called transportation network companies (TNC), you'll need to review your auto insurance.
Your personal auto policy may not cover you while transporting passengers you picked up through a ridesharing app; in most cases it won't.
As ridesharing became a market force in the last few years, auto insurance companies responded by creating hybrid policies that are more than personal poli...
California's health exchange has been one of the biggest and most successful state Obamacare programs. But today, Covered California, as it's known, announced an average statewide premium increase of 13.2 percent for 2017, setting off a round of criticism and defensive responses.
“These outrageous premium hikes are the consequence of California’s failure to adopt health insurance premium regulation like the majority of the states and the disappearance of federal subsidies for insurance companies to even out bumps in the road ,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, which sponsored an unusccessful rate regulation initiative in 2014.
Insurance companies said the rate hikes -- more than three times the increases of the last two years -- were the result of factors beyond their control.
“In 2017, Covered California prices are influenced by higher spending on medical care, particularly skyrocketing prices on specialty drugs, and the sunset of two federal programs," said California Association of Health Plans President & CEO Charles Bacchi.
“California’s health exchange opened up access to health care for millions, with 11 health plans in Covered California competing over price and quality and in most of the regions of the state," Bacchi said.
“Some rate increases are necessary to cover the cost of care as more and more Californians use medical services that have become increasingly expensive each year. As prices for hospitals, doctors, specialty drugs and other services keep climbing, we cannot lose focus on our goal of affordability,” he said.
"Regulation is the hammer"
But Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit based in Santa Monica, said the increases could have been avoided if the rate regulation initiative had passed.
“When three health insurance companies control 90% of the market there is no bargaining with them absent a hammer. Rate regulation is the hammer," Court said. "California consumers cannot continue to pay more for very limited doctors and hospital networks. Rate regulation needs to move to the top of the legislature’s list.”
The ballot initiative failed to pass in a record-low turnout election, but it garnered 41% of the vote despite a $57 million insurance company campaign against it, Court noted.
The federal programs that are being phased out were intended to help stabilize the market during the first few years of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
How much more individual consumers will have to pay depends on whether they are eligible for taxpayer-supported subsidies and whether they choose to switch to lower-cost plans that may have higher deductibles and co-pays.
California's health exchange has been one of the biggest and most successful state Obamacare programs. But today, Covered California, as it's known, announced an average statewide premium increase of 13.2 percent for 2017, setting off a round of criticism and defensive responses.
“These outrageous premium hikes are the consequence of California’s failure to adopt health insurance premium regulation like the majority of the states and the disappearance of federal subsidie...