About Group Health Insurance

The continuing growth in the number of insurance plans where the employer or union assumes all or part of the responsibility for paying claims made the nations employers a principal bearer of the financial risks of illness and non-job-related injury in 1990. Group health insurance is better than individual in most cases- your premium will be lower, and your options greater. If you cannot receive group insurance coverage through your employer, then you'll need to seek out an individual plan.

2 basic group plans
--fully insured
--MPP (minimum premium plan)

Under fully insured, your employer accepts all the risk for paying your claims.

Under MPP, your employer pays up to a certain specified maximum; after which point, the insurer pays. Most of these plans offer several types of coverage:

--basic coverage
--major medical coverage
-->basic, plus major medical coverage

Majority of these plans fall under major medical, and don't contain a basic hospital benefit for hospital related expenses.


Employers Offering Health Insurance
Coverage varies from industry to industry. Most, if not all, state and local government agencies offer health insurance. Goods-producing firms are more likely to provide health benefits than are service-producing firms.

Coverage is less commonly offered by firms employing significant proportions of low-wage workers, that have a large proportion of part-time workers, or that experience high employee turnover.