Texas Health Insurance Consumers Avoid Rate Increases Again

Thank god its over for another year. Goodness it was a brutal month and a half but Texas health insurance consumers that have the policy with Peeler Insurance avoided the brutality of April renewals.

Yes, this scene gets played out every year. Texas health insurance companies with no regard to the present economy blister the rates every year and I scramble to run rate comparisons to determine if we should explore other affordable health insurance in Texas options. This year I am proud to report we had a 90% success rate in providing lower cost options over their current Texas health insurance policy.

Some individual health insurance in Texas agents differ with my business approach. They think I’m crazy to run new rates for existing clients. These agents feel I should just leave a current client on their current policy and when the client calls in complaining just tell them that’s the way it is or just take the easy way out and raise the deductible to offset the higher monthly premium. To me that’s a load of garbage. The only way you keep clients long term and build a strong client base is to always be in a position to offer similar coverage from different companies. That is one of the major reasons I am appointed to sell with all the major players in the Texas health insurance market.

OK, now with my twins due any day, this month was by far the most stressful and long. I think I slept on average 4 hours per night and was in my office working about 18 hours a day. That is one big reason this Texas health insurance blog has not had as many post as I would like but, duty calls and my clients must be taken care of. Period!

This month Aetna, Humana, Unicare, World and Blue Cross & Blue Shield decided it was high time for a rate adjustment, andadjust they did. I found that on most accounts Cigna Health Insurance offered the best option for existing Texas health insurance consumers to migrate to. Cigna has a very respectful PPO doctor co pay plan and offered much the same benefits to consumers that had both Aetna and Humana. From the high deductible front Blue Corss and Blue Shield was found to offer the best movement option. They really seem to control the HSA and catastrophic health insurance in Texas market . For some reason Unicare, once the only player on price in Texas, is getting left in the dust.

Now, form the underwriting side of things I experienced no major roadblocks. Cigna really stepped up to the plate and offered what I felt were fair decisions and I only had a limited handful of Texas health insurance clients that were affected negatively to their underwriting actions. Blue Cross & Blue Shield has always been somewhat fair and they delivered as expected. So, overall, any client that wanted to lower their monthly Texas health insurance premiums or avoid a monthly increase did just that.

It seems that Cigna Health Insurance was preforming very well price wise in both North Texas and down Houston way, I found that in other parts of the state they can be a challenge from a premium standpoint. In the hill country areaI found Blue Cross & Blue Shield making a strong foothold.

There are still more rate increases for some of my clients that will come off rate guarantees throughout the year and I will handle them in much the same way as I did the 2nd quarter rate increases but at least they don’t all come at once as is always the case in April.

There is still a few housekeeping and administrative maneuvers I must preform for my clients but for the most part, it’s game over.

If you are not a Texas health insurance client of Peeler Insurance and you found that little rate increase letter in the mail and didn’t act upon it, either visit my website or call me for your free Texas health insurance quote today. We may not be able to get that April 1st effective date but May 1 is coming fast.

 

So, there you have it. Another year we dodged the Texas health insurance rate increase bullet. Now I can get some much needed rest before my lovely wife says… honey, it’s time to go to the hospital and we accept the arrival of Andreas and Natalie.