Hi Ladies.

I was wondering how many of you have to get health insurance for you and your child/children on you own? Or meaning that your husband doesn't have health insurance offered through his company or for the type work he does. Good health insurance is important to me but my DH works for himself and it worries me when I am ready to stay home that GOOD insurance will not be affordable. Any info is greatly appreciated!

Someone help me out here. Any information?

Both dh and I are self-employed, so we find our own insurance. It can be a challenge, as you need to find out what companies sell insurance in your state. An Independent agent can be of great help. Luckily we had a good friend that was an agent, and he knew which companies were good, and which were not. Make sure to check the companies' ratings at ambest, jdpower, places like that (just google health insurance ratings).

How's your health, will you have any pre-existing conditions? This can determine how easy it will be to get insurance on your own, and whether you will have riders against your policy for pre-existing conditions. You'll need to discuss this with your agent.

We've been able to stay with one company (Blue Cross/Iowa), but our rates go up ~$75-90/mo. each year. When they go too high, we write a new policy and get into a new "group" to get the rates back down. As long as we're in good health, this is not a problem. Someday, I'm sure we'll be "stuck", but hopefully not until near retirement age.

When I became a SAHM right after Jared was born, we looked at going on Dh's insurance. AT the time, he paid like $20/paycheck for decent insurance. HOWEVER, to get me on it it would cost like $800/month. So, we did some checking around and got BC/BS for ds and me for like a little over $200/month. It didn't have a maternity rider tho.

Check with your state to see if there is any insurance that is offered for children. Many state offer free or very affordable insurance for children under the age of 18-according to your income. Sometimes the only way for women to get it is if you are prego.

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Thanks girls! Good stuff!

Whatever you do, don't skip it! My husband was just in a major car accident (he'll be fine) but BC/BS picked up all of the medical bills. You never know what's around the corner. His ambulance bills alone were $5,000. We have good car insurance but not that good!

My DH is self-employed, so when my COBRA ran out we had to find our own health insurance. We ended up finding a policy through ehealthinsurance.com after looking for a couple of months. Looking for our policy literally became my part-time job due to my having PCOS. Be patient and prepared for frustration filling out LONG applications but whatever you do, don't skip it! We have a HSA (health savings account) qualified plan which allows us to save for medical needs tax-free, but you have to have a qualified plan with a high deductable to open this type of account. We hardly ever have to go to the dr so this works well for us except that we don't have maternity and I don't know what we will do if we decide on baby #2.

Good Luck!!!

Just a question for you self employed people, do you have disability policies too? I have been looking into getting one but I dont know any good companies. I'm a RN and work per diem (so its not avail from my work).

We don't, we also do not have dental or vision coverage. We can only afford the health insurance, and that's a challenge.