I don’t know what state you are in, what happened to you with Assurant sounds like it would be illegal in Illinois. In this state premiums aren’t allowed to increase for “high risk” customers anymore than they increase for healthy patients.

Look into the high risk pool in your state, if it has one. In Illinois you’d be eligible for the pool — its expensive, but nowhere near what you’re paying now.

For everyone, try to get a HDHP plan that has 100% coverage when you meet the deductible, stay away from Out of Pocket Maximums…they can often be increased on an individual basis unlike the premiums.

I.e. OOP will remain same for healthy customers but be increased for unhealthy customers.

Finally, after running the numbers with a HDHP that pays 100% after deductible is met I discovered that for people who are very sick the HDHP route is actually CHEAPER than normal insurance. If you are self employed you can use your HDHP with a Health Reimbursement Arrangement instead of an HSA and pay virtually everything with pre-tax dollars.

Health insurance is something that should be reviewed once a year.

An agent would have helped you the first year there was a price increase to move your family to a plan that is more appropriate that would not affect you the way you were affected.

This does not only happen with HDHP and HSA’s. Premium increases occur in every type of health insurance, this is why it is important to be doing business with an independent agent that is contracted with all the top carriers in your state.

Here is my story with Assurant Health – My family has had a high deductible HSA with Assurant Health from March of 2000 to September of 2008. When we started with 2 children and 2 adults covered, the quarterly premium was $892 and the calendar year family deductible was $4,500; total OOP in or out of network was $5,500.

By last September (2007), our premiums had increased to $2,615 per quarter with the same deductible. An increase of nearly 300% in seven years!!

In June we received a letter informing us that Assurant Health was discontinuing our policy and replacing it with one of their new products. When we received the details of the new policy a month ago, we learned that the quarterly premium (now for 2 adults and 1 dependent) will be $3022.32 ($12,088/year) and the deductible will increase to $5,700; maximum OOP in-network will be $10,700; OOP out-of-network will be $18,700. AND, to add insult to injury, even though we have met our deductible of $4,500 for 2008, as of 9/1/08, Assurant tells us that we will have to come up with another $1,200 in deductibles before they will cover anything….and then they will only cover 50% of the next in-network $10,000 in medical expenses.

No one at Assurant Health sees anything wrong with this picture.

As far as I am concerned, they have now priced themselves out of my ability to pay. No one but the very wealthy could afford to pay $22,700 to $30,700 EVERY calendar year before their health insurance kicks and pays the majority of their medical expenses.

Our family had no medical issues when we took out the policy. Unfortunately, three years later, my husband was diagnosed with cancer and my son had a tumor and experienced several relatively major sports injuries which required numerous surgeries. Our medical expenses for these illnesses has meant that we have met the deductible each year since 2002 (7 years in a row). We have struggled the last few years to pay the ever increasing premiums and the $5,500 deductible. As a consequence, our original plan to put money into the HSA for a “rainy day” never materialized. Each year we contributed the maximum amount allowed ($5,500 for a family) but almost as soon as it was deposited, we needed it (and then some!!!) to pay for on-going medical expenses.

With this “new, improved plan”, Assurant has made it impossible for us to continue. It feels like a deliberate attempt to get rid of us.

In addition, the new policy has 7+ pages listing things not covered by the plan – as opposed to 1 1/2 pages on the old policy. The old policy was 23 pages long….the new one is 80 pages long, full of exceptions and caveats. The only improved benefit is an increase in lifetime benefits from $6,000,000 to $8,000,000 per insured. That made me laugh after reading all the things they won’t cover and also now knowing that long before $6 or $8 million in benefits is paid out on any given insured, the company will discontinue the policy and put an unaffordable one in its place.

When I asked about other plans Assurant might be able to offer our family to reduce the cost, I was told that every other plan would have to be medically underwritten….which is the same as telling me that they won’t cover us. Take our unaffordable plan or do without.

Had everything gone according to our plans, we’d not have experienced any health problems and we would have $35,000 to $45,000 in our HSA account. I am very grateful for the coverage for as long as it lasted, but I no longer believe in the security promised by HSA plans.