Forget Open Enrollment – You CAN Get a Health Insurance Policy in Arizona

Obamacare Deadlines –

Did you miss the ObamaCare open enrollment deadline of March 31, 2014? If you did, you may have heard that it is too late now to get a health insurance policy. That simply is not true.

Because open enrollment is now over until November 2014, you MAY be limited in the choices you have in selecting a new policy, but there are still very good plans available to you right now. And there are circumstances that enable you to purchase the plan of your choice from any insurance company whenever you want without limiting your choices. Those circumstances include getting married, having a baby or adopting, permanently moving to a new area that has different health plan choices, losing health care coverage that is considered minimum essential coverage, canceling or losing your group coverage and a change in income. These are called SEPs, or Special Enrollment Periods.

But the fact is — open enrollment, as described by the US government — only pertains to plans purchased through the federal or state marketplaces. Individual insurance companies are allowed to sell plans to anyone any time they want! But most carriers have decided to NOT sell plans until the next open enrollment period begins in November. They believe that the only people who would want to buy a health insurance plan outside of open enrollment are those people with pre-existing conditions or someone trying to buy a policy from the inside of an ambulance on the way to a hospital.

No matter what your health is like, if you don’t meet any of the SEP requirements, you can still purchase one of the Meritus health insurance plans, and they have quite a few plans to choose from. Meritus is Arizona’s only insurance cooperative. Meritus is a non-profit, member-driven cooperative “dedicated to providing affordable, innovative health insurance solutions to small businesses, non-profits and individuals in Arizona.”

The Meritus monthly premium rates are quite competitive, even though they are one of the two or three carriers that will offer you a policy since open enrollment has ended. Call Lehrman Group Health Insurance Brokers at (800) 600-9663 from Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff or anywhere else in Arizona. We’ll give you rates for the various Meritus plans right over the phone.