Blue Print

Insurance Of the life

How much time should you devote to choosing a health insurance plan? A survey by Aflac found that some Americans (24%) spend only five minutes or less – and many (41%) spend 15 minutes or less – on this important decision. That may be because 90% of employees simply stay with the status quo, choosing the same plan as last year. That can be a mistake, as your employer’s offerings and the plans themselves do change and there might be a better one for you in the offing.

Here we use as examples the Aetna and Cigna PPO plans offered by employers. The details of these plans, and others that you may be offered, can vary greatly. But the following tips for comparing plans will also help in decision-making for people comparing other policies offered by employers – as well as by healthcare.gov (the Affordable Care Act's Health Insurance Marketplace/Exchange) and sold on the individual market. Here’s how to get started.

Survey Your Options

The first step is to take another look at your choices. You’re likely to have a number (sometimes a big number) of health insurance plans available to you. For example, employees of the federal government who live in New York have a mind-bending 25 plans to choose from. And for many areas of the country, the choices are plentiful at healthcare.gov. However, private employers may offer only a handful of plans, and in some locales choices are much more limited. If there’s a newly available or expanded plan for your area, it pays to check it out and make sure the plan you currently use is still competitive. (Also, see Open Enrollment For Health Insurance Marketplace. You may also want to readBuying Private Health Insurance; although the 2010 Affordable Care Act has changed the age at which grown children must leave the protection of parents

Consider the Company

Aetna and Cigna, which we are comparing here, both insure a very large number of people. In 2013, Aetna ranked #4 and Cigna #7 in market share, according to data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners reported by US News and World Report. While a large health insurance company is not necessarily better than a small one, it’s likely that with either Aetna or Cigna you will have a good number of doctors to choose from in your provider network, and that you will also be able to find people you know who have had local experience with the plans you’re being offered.