Hey all,
I am slowly putting my plan together to go from lumber salesman to full time contractor. I am starting to line up more side jobs and that will hopefully lead to more.
It occurred to me that I will have to find a way to get health insurance on my wife and three kids when I am off the company insurance.
Can anyone tell me what they do and costs/coverages?
I need to know what to plan for.
Thanks,
Replies
10k annually.
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It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
For my kids I have an HMO that costs about $150 a kid. For myself and my wife I have a Major Medical policy with a high deductible that costs about $100 per person.
What Eric said.
Try your local chamber of commerce and the local Home Builders Association. A word of caution. Around here the home builders association was only offering one plan and it went from $850 a month to $1100 a month in one year.
Some agents will steer you towards a " Small Business Owners Association" that you can join for about $250 a year. Then you can become part of their group and get in their plan.
With kids plan on either paying a lot of costs out of pocket or Paying about $13K per year for health insurance.
Also, before you give up your policy make sure neither your wife or your children have a " Pre-existing Condition"
my oldest daughter was three and a half months premature. Because of that, my wife has a................................. you guessed it....................................Pre-Existing condition. As such it was almost impossible for me to insure her while I was self-empoyed.
word.... i piggyback on my wife's health insurance
question: all the lumber salesmen and millwork salesmen i know make a lot more than i do.. why would you want to stop being a lumber salesman to become a contractor ?
Contact MEGA health. We have them and they're ok. They're expensive, but who isn't?
I was suprised to have found a plan through Fidelity that cost me about $230 a month for my wife and I and our 20 month old little girl.
Has $250 deductible for wellness (physicals, etc.) visits, $35 copay for office visits and in the event of a major health catastrophe - you'd only be out about $6000 in a calender year.
The downside is that for prescriptions - I only get a 25% off discount.
Still - I thought it was going to be a lot higher than that...
JT
If you're going to go solo (sole proprietorship), and you have no coverage through DW, then strongly suggest you consider a Health Savings Account, or HSA. In summary, you can set up an HSA that must be combined with a High Deductible Health Insurance policy. You fund the HSA with pretax $$, which can be used tax free to pay for you and your family's share of health care costs under the plan. Rather than go into additional details here, suggest you Google around a bit to learn more.
If your previous employer has at least 20 employees, you should be able to continue your current group plan under COBRA for 18 months, but you'll most likely have to pay the full premium yourself.
BruceM
You might want to check out professional associations, even ones that you are not really a part of. They often have insurance policies available as a benefit to members. Particularly if the membership includes lots of self employed types.