College students are exposed to an alarming amount of potential contaminants, viruses and bacteria that can cause a variety of illnesses from a common cold to a serious long-term medical condition. The key to keeping healthy is making sure that health insurance is in place. This can be a very big challenge considering that most college students do not have the time to keep a full time job as well as attend school full time.
How Are Cheap Student Health Insurance Plans Different?
Individual health insurance plans typically cover more than cheap student health insurance plans, but they are likely to cost more in premiums, have higher deductibles, and have higher co-payments. There are cheap health insurance plans for college students that are tailored to their unique needs. Some of these plans offer great coverage and are affordable, with low annual premiums and low deductibles and low or no co-pays. Although, there are also some cheap health insurance plans for college students that are not good choices for most people. These plans tend to offer good coverage only for things like vaccinations, regular checkups and medications. While coverage for preventative treatments like medication is important for a college student, these plans leave the college student at risk for incurring large medical bills if they would develop a major medical condition of any type because they do not have adequate coverage for more expensive treatments or hospital visits.
The Annual Cost Of Cheap Health Insurance For Students
A person looking to buy cheap health insurance for college students can expect annual premium rates to be between a mere thirty dollars and about eight hundred fifty dollars. Of course there are more expensive options available for college students that can run up to or over two thousand five hundred dollars, but when cheap is important, expect prices up to eight hundred fifty dollars. A dollar amount like eight hundred fifty may seem like a large sum of money, but this amount breaks down to under seventeen dollars per week. Anyone who has paid health insurance premiums as a deduction from their weekly paycheck can verify that this is a very low rate. These plans typically will have deductibles of two hundred fifty to five hundred dollars. So far as co-payments go, expect a maximum of twenty five to thirty dollars per visit. Some cheap health insurance plans for college students might offer plans with no co-payments.
Cheap College Student Health Insurance Benefits and Coverage
The amount of coverage offered by cheap college student health insurance programs is what determines their true value to the person who will be enrolled in the plan. An ideal cheap health insurance for college students will have full coverage of all routine, basic and diagnostic services. It should also include significant coverage for major medical costs, such as surgery, long-term treatments, hospital stays, and emergency treatment. Significant treatment in these categories should be above seventy-five to eighty percent coverage. The high percentage for the coverage of those categories will drive the monthly premium rates up, but in the event of an emergency or a major surgery it will pay off. How it would translate to real medical bills is that if there were a one thousand dollar amount owed, the insurance company would pay eight hundred dollars towards the bill if they cover at eighty percent leaving only two hundred dollars for the insured party to pay.
Another aspect of an insurance plan to look out for is a coverage maximum. Some cheap health insurance for college students will allow only a certain amount of money to be paid out toward a single event. So if a major accident occurs and the insurance company has a coverage maximum of thirty thousand dollars, the student would be responsible for the entire amount due that is over that amount. If the medical bills totaled one hundred thousand dollars, that would leave them responsible for paying the remaining seventy thousand dollars in bills after the insurance paid their thirty thousand dollars. Believe it or not, one hundred thousand dollars is not that difficult to spend in a hospital after a major car accident.
Finding cheap health insurance for college students is easy. Keep in mind the other options available when you are preparing to purchase the insurance plan. It does not have to be specifically designed to be cheap health insurance for college students. There may be better coverage available for them that is designed to be and marketed as an individual health insurance program. If the student is able to, they may be better off staying on their parents’ health insurance program due to the tendency for group insurance plans to have more comprehensive coverage at a lower cost. After thoroughly researching and comparing the best options available to the student, it should be easy to see which of cheap health insurance for college students is best for them.
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