Insurance policies on our lives, health and property are important safeguards of our financial well-being. So try to pay your premiums and keep your coverage.
You have many different policies, such as
Review each policy and list:
Talk to your union or company insurance office to find out:
Call or write your insurance agent for each of your policies (car, life, homeowner’s, and other policies), and explain your situation. Ask the insurance agent to consider a different payment plan. What options do you have?
Talk to your insurance agent to see if you have too much insurance. The insurance company may prefer reducing your coverage than losing your business.
Talk to your life insurance agent about:
Talk to your car insurance agent about:
The 1986 Combined Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) is a federal law that:
1. Provides for the right of each worker, at companies with 20 or more employees, to continue his/her health insurance in the event of layoff, strike or other displacement from the job , at the same cost the employer was paying, plus 2 percent.
You have 60 days to elect this option. The recent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides a 65 percent reduction in the premiums payable by involuntarily terminated workers and their families for health care continuation coverage under COBRA. This premium reduction will last for up to nine months. Workers who have been involuntarily terminated during the period from Sept. 1, 2008, through Dec. 31, 2009, and their families are eligible. This premium reduction also applies to health care continuation coverage that may be required by states for insurance policies sponsored by small employers (so called state mini-COBRAs) and public employees. Ask your union representative or company insurance office how to apply for COBRA.
2. COBRA insurance protection lasts for 18 months. It may be expensive, depending on family size, even at group rates. But it offers protection to those who otherwise could not get medical insurance, like heart patients, pregnant women and cancer patients.
3. In the event of the death of an employee who has taken the COBRA option, the spouse has the option to maintain group insurance under COBRA for a period of 36 months.
