How And When Can You Cancel Your California Individual Health Plan

Submitted by: Dennis Jarvis

A good percentage of California health insurance quotes that people run in a given day are for short term health insurance. Usually, people are quoting this type of insurance not because of some merit of temporary health insurance policies (versus “permanent” plans) but because of their particular situation which generally requires a shorter period of time. In many ways, “permanent” coverage makes more sense unless you have a fixed period of time to insure under 6 months such as a 3 month waiting period for new group insurance. This brings up the question of what kind of contact California individual family health plans require. Great question. Let’s look at how and when you can cancel your coverage.

So what is contract required? We have good news for you. Unlike many other types of insurance, the California health plan contracts are month to month. This means you can cancel your policy month to month for any reason and they are also guaranteed renewable which means that the policy will continue indefinitely (till age 65) as long as you pay the premium and remain eligible (such as being a California resident for the majority of the calendar year). Once you get past the the 10 day free look window from the carriers notification of their offer to you, the contract will then be month to month even if you pay multiple months at a time. You are not locked into a longer period of time than the next month. Let’s look at how you would cancel the policy.

California health insurance is a pre-pay policy by nature. This means that you pay a premium now for the next period of time. Typically, you need to make the next month’s period before the 1st of the month although there can be a grace period of 30 days to make payment for a given period. Just a head’s up..Cobra payments are much stricter and this grace period generally doesn’t apply so make sure to find out when payments are required by your Cobra carrier/administrator. Once you’re out of the 10 day free look window which we discuss in detail with our 10 day free look article, you’re on the hook for the 1st month’s premium at the worst. Payment for the 1st month’s premium is required up front with the application so you can only get this refunded by requesting cancellation during the 10 day window (from written carrier notification). Once we’re out of this window, your policy is month to month.

To cancel your policy, we just need a written request (email is fine) to cancel your policy and with what effective date prior to the effective requested. For example, if you want the policy cancelled June 1st, you can email us the request any day during May (of course earlier is better) to cancel June 1st. The carriers generally process the request in a few business days but ideally, you want to avoid an auto-deduction from a checking account if that’s payment type with a very late month request to cancel.

So that’s it. You can cancel your policy month to month with a notification prior to 1st of the month that you want it cancelled. Individual health policies in California are full-month policies so the carrier will not offer you a mid-month cancellation (such as June 13th). Coverage always goes through the end of a paid-up month. Keep in mind that deductibles and max-out-of-pockets are calendar year regardless of when a policy starts or ends.

About the Author: Dennis Jarvis is a licensed

California health insurance quote

agent with extensive knowledge of the Individual California health market.

quote California health plans

Source:

isnare.com

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