What Is Individual and Family Health Insurance Coverage?
A serious illness can send an individual or family into bankruptcy if it does not have health insurance. Health insurance is sold or underwritten in many forms, and coverage options often are available. Individual and family health insurance are two types of coverage.
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Health Insurance
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Health insurance pays medical expenses when the insured gets sick or injured. It may cover routine doctor visits as well as hospitalization. Individuals and families can get health insurance either individually or as part of a group. Many people have group health insurance through their employer.
How It Works
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All health insurance, whether individual or group, is based on the concept of "pooled risk." In pooled risk, the larger the pool of people in an insured group, the less the health of one individual plays in determining the cost for that insured person.
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Pools
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Several pools exist. They include, but are not limited to, general pools, which include all individuals insured by a given insurance company; employer-sponsored pools, which includes all employees of a given employer, and government-sponsored pools such as Medicare and Medicaid. Each pool is designed to cover certain medical expenditures for the insured.
Individual Health Coverage
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Individual health insurance refers to insurance provided or underwritten on an individual basics and not as part of a group. This means individual cost is linked more closely to the health of that individual than it would be in a group policy. For this reason, premiums for individual health insurance tend to be higher than the cost associated with group coverage options.
Family Health Coverage
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Family health insurance covers an entire family. It can be sold or underwritten as an individual policy or as a group policy. Cost savings apply if the coverage is part of a group policy
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References
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