Our article "5 steps to lower your healthcare costs" was presented on the business section of their morning newscast.  Click Here to read the article.

As a parent, you know you need a life insurance policy, but how much? What is the minimum amount your survivors would need for the monetary loss of you or your spouse? It is estimated to raise a child from birth to college can cost anywhere in the neighborhood of $700,000! Here are some quick and simple ways to get an idea of how much your life insurance policy should be:

· Option 1: Determining Expenses (-) Assets: Figure a rough estimate of your annual family budget. This would include your mortgage, child care, insurance, and basic living expenses. Don't forget to include expenses such as vacations, and future education plans such as private school and college. Next, estimate a figure for your assets such as savings, social security benefits, or any other income that will be there such as the income of a surviving spouse.

Remember, stay-at-home spouses contribute a lot to the family income by by-passing child care, travel, cleaning, cooking, tutoring and associated costs, therefore would need to be insured also.

· Option 2: Salary Estimate: Another quick, but more general way, would be to take your current annual salary and multiply that by 7. For example, if you make 60,000/per year then I would recommend buying a minimum of $420,000($60,000 X 7= $420,000).

If your estimate is high, good, it's probably right. If you are worried about the premium cost, I would recommend choosing term life insurance. You can get a policy for the time you would need it (the amount of time your kids would depend on you) for a lower premium than other insurance options.

Health savings accounts appear to perform better for healthy workers than for unhealthy workers. A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office reveals that HSA-eligible plan enrollees would incur higher annual costs than PPO enrollees for extensive use of health care, but would see lower annual costs than PPO enrollees for low to moderate use of medical services.

About two-thirds of employers offering HSA-eligible plans contributed to their employees' HSAs, and the average employer HSA contribution was about $1,064 in 2004.

At least 55% of HSA-eligible plan participants contribute to their HSAs, and account holders use their HSAs to pay for medical care and accumulate savings. About 90% of the funds withdrawn in 2004 were for qualified medical expenses.

It's unclear whether HSAs turn patients into better health care shoppers. Few HSA-users research cost before obtaining medical services, but many research the cost of prescription drugs, GAO reports.

Most participants were satisfied with their HSA-eligible plan and would recommend these plans to healthy people, but not to individuals who use a maintenance medication, have a chronic condition, have children or may not have the funds to meet the high deductible.

HSA-eligible plan enrollees generally were wealthier than comparison groups, but data on age differences were inconclusive. In 2004, 51% of tax filers reporting an HSA contribution had an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or more, compared to just 18% of all tax filers under 65 years old.

American workers are in the dark about how to manage their income if they become unable to work due to a disability, a new UnumProvident and Harris Interactive poll of 1,700 U.S. adults reveals.

A whopping 97% of workers think leaving the job for a disability should require some level of income replacement, but only 37% have disability coverage. What's more, among those who are covered, 37% do not understand that the insurance would replace part of their income and assist with monthly expenses.

Workers also appear out of touch with just how much disability insurance will cover. Forty-seven percent felt income replacement for a year or less was satisfactory. Studies show 1 in 3 disabled individuals will miss at least three months of pay. After being inactive for ninety days, the average length of disability is two years. Disability insurance prepares workers for the financial fallout from a disabling illness or injury and protects workers with planned leaves, such as surgery or maternity leave.

"This research points to a clear disconnect," says Mike Simonds, senior vice president of product development and marketing for UnumProvident. "Workers understand that some level of disability income protection is necessary, but nearly two-thirds of these workers remain uninsured. Given such a clear need, today's employers are missing a hidden gem for their benefits packages, and workers are overlooking a key aspect of financial planning."

A health insurance policy is a legal, binding contract between the insurance company and the customer. The largest difference between private sector health insurance and life insurance is that for life insurance, a person may purchase guaranteed renewable insurance for the whole of the insured's life at a constant premium rate, while health insurance is generally purchased year by year with generally no assurance of renewability and if renewable no guarantee that premium rates will not increase.

Before buying health insurance, a person typically fills out a comprehensive medical history form that asks whether the person smokes, how much the person weighs, and has the person ever been treated for any of a long list of diseases. Applicants can get discounts if they do not smoke and live a healthy lifestyle, which might encourage some people to quit smoking or make other improvements in their lifestyle. The medical history is also used to screen out persons with pre-existing medical conditions.

The following is a hypothetical example of a situation that might confront an insurance company: Suppose that a large number of customers of a particular insurance company contracted a rare disease and the hospital charged 10 million dollars a patient to treat them. The insurance company would then be faced with a choice of paying all claims without complaint (thus losing money and possibly going out of business) or denying the claims (thus outraging patients and their families, discouraging potential customers, and becoming a target for lawsuits and legislation).

Health insurance companies use the term "adverse selection" to describe the tendency for sick people to be more likely to sign up for health insurance.

Ex-post moral hazard is in essence the consequence of reduced prices for medical care. Since most insurance plans, whether public or private, reduce the out-of pocket cost of medical care, the behavior of individuals will be affected by those reduced prices. In the same way that people treat water with little care when it is very inexpensive, people will also tend to over-use medical care when the out-of pocket costs are small. Of course, medical care still needs to be financed, and so taxes or premiums will be higher than the optimal amount. This inflation of taxes or premiums to cover the choices made under subsidized prices is what is termed ex-post moral hazard, and is a different phenomena than the ex-ante moral hazard mentioned above.

With publicly funded health insurance the good and the bad risks all receive coverage without regard to their health status, which eliminates the problem of adverse selection, although it introduces a problem of moral hazard.

Because of advances in medicine and medical technology, medical treatment is more expensive, and people in developed countries are living longer. The population of those countries is aging, and a larger group of senior citizens requires more medical care than a young healthier population. (A similar rise in costs is evident in Social Security in the United States.) These factors cause an increase in the price of health insurance.

Some other factors that cause an increase in health insurance prices are health related: insufficient exercise; unhealthy food choices; a shortage of doctors in impoverished or rural areas; excessive alcohol use, smoking, street drugs, obesity, among some parts of the population; and the modern sedentary lifestyle of the middle classes.

In theory, people could lower health insurance prices by doing the opposite of the above; that is, by exercising, eating healthy food, avoiding addictive substances, etc. Healthier lifestyles protect the body from some, although not all, diseases, and with fewer diseases, the expenses borne by insurance companies would likely drop.

Common complaints of private insurance

Some common complaints about private health insurance include:

1. Insurance companies do not announce their health insurance premiums more than a year in advance. This means that, if one becomes ill, he or she may find that their premiums have greatly increased. BUPA does not penalise indiviudals who claim but spreads the cost across the customer base.
2. If insurance companies try to charge different people different amounts based on their own personal health, people will feel they are unfairly treated.
3. When a claim is made, particularly for a sizeable amount, it may be deemed in the best interest of the insurance company to use paperwork and bureaucracy to attempt to avoid payment of the claim or, at a minimum, greatly delay it.
4. Health insurance is often only widely available at a reasonable cost through an employer-sponsored group plan.
5. Employers can write some or all of their employee health insurance premiums off of their taxable income whereas traditionally individuals have had to pay taxes on income used to fund health insurance.
6. Experimental treatments are generally not covered. This practice is especially criticized by those who have already tried, and not benefited from, all "standard" medical treatments for their condition. It also leads to many insurers claiming or attempting to claim that procedures are still "experimental" well after they have become standard medical practice in many instances.
7. The Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) type of health insurance plan has been criticized for excessive cost-cutting policies.
8. As the health care recipient is not directly involved in payment of health care services and products, they are less likely to scrutinize or negotiate the costs of the health care received. To care providers, insured care recipients are essentially seen as customers with relatively limitless financial resources who don't look at prices. The health care company has few popular and many unpopular ways of controlling this market force.
9. Some health care providers end up with different sets of rates for the same procedure. One for people with insurance and another for those without.

Our website has had a facelift. hopefully our new site will make shopping for your health insurance policy a much easier process. We would love to hear your thoughts on the new design. Please contact us if you have any comments.

What does "level 1" mean?
Level 1 means enrollment is approved at the standard premium rate, with no additional charges for increased health risks.

Why are you looking back 10 years for specific medical conditions?
The new Colorado and Nevada applications request medical information up to 10 years so the underwriting department can appropriately assess risk for certain medical conditions.

How often does underwriting status change on AgentServices?
The AgentServices website provides real-time status.

Do you call the agent or the applicant when information is missing?
When information is missing on the application, our underwriting support associate will contact both the agent and the applicant to get the required information.

How are you contacting the client ? by phone, e-mail or letter? How often?
We'll attempt to contact the applicant for three consecutive days. Our first attempt is by phone, and if we don't receive a response, we'll try e-mail. We'll send a letter if we mail back the application.

Who do I call if I have questions about a lifetime benefit exclusion (waiver), rate-up or effective date?
Effective August 18, 2006, call 877-494-3084 if you have any questions about a lifetime benefit exclusion (waiver), rate-up or effective date.

It seems like you're asking for more medical records than in the past. Why?
We ask for medical records for certain medical conditions and diagnoses to better assess the underwriting risk.

For underwriting assistance for pre-screens, application status, help with exclusion waivers and all other Individual Products underwriting questions, please contact us toll free at 877-494-3084 or e-mail us at anthemwestunderwriting@anthem.com.

Roper Insurance is now a member of the Colorado State Firefighters Association.  We have joined the group to provide individual health insurance solutions to volunteer firefighters and group health insurance benefits to full time firefighters across the state.  We attended this years conference in Vail to meet some of Colorado's finest firefighters, we had so much fun we are already planning to be at next years event. CSFFA Home Page

This year we will be at the Colorado Business Show at the Colorado Convention Center. As a leader in health insurance solutions for the small business owner we will be there to meet with new business owners, as well as talk with many of our current clients who will be attending the show. The show will be on May 8th, 2006 and will cost $10 at the door.