Photo Credits: blogs.squaremouth.com/
There have been some changes recently with the application process for a Celtic Insurance health policy. Once the policy is approved, there is a change in effective date; when the policy starts. In one particular case, they had coverage for at least 18 months with qualifying coverage and no breaks in that coverage for more than 63 days. In fact, there were no breaks in coverage. This is key when switching to most health plans. The premium coverage was not modified due to the health or underwriting. The effective date was scheduled to start 19 days later than requested.
The representative at Celtic claims that Celtic Insurance Co. is requiring the earliest effective date a new policyholder can have is 30 days from the application date. How is that miss when completing the application? Come to find out, this change happened a couple months. The Celtic rep was not specific.
There has been no correspondence with the insurance agents or any public announcement. The representative said there is a notification of the effective date change after you run the quote that is less than 30 days from the application date.
By running the health insurance quote from the Celtic website, it does put a notification that the fact that they will change to the 30 day rule. The problem with it is the wording above and below the message is much larger prints. The eyes are not naturally drawn to it with other larger distractions on the page. This could be a problem because most people will be drawn to their quotes let alone some fine print at the top of the page. This could leave it completely missed altogether. After all, they went to the website to run a quote, right?
This is a little misleading. If someone is not able to have an effective date any sooner than 30 days from now, why does it allow you to quote with an effective date of the very next day after apply?
Is there anything wrong with a thirty-day rule? Absolutely not. It will restrict some people from choosing Celtic as the carrier. The problem is the communication is not clear. It is an internal change with no communication, or not enough communication, to the outside.
It reminds me of the time that Amazon.com pulled a fast one on a Kindle Book. Amazon was selling an illegal copy of a book on Kindle. Once they found out about it, they went in and just deleted it from everyone's account and refund the purchase price with no prior notification. They may have notified them after the fact, but their book was now gone. Just a bad idea with customers involved.
The issue someone faces with Celtic Insurance is the false pretense of thinking they will have courage when they won't. If you apply today and you were approved before the end of the month, you can go a week or so without insurance. In this particular case, they were set up to go 19 days without coverage.
It is always a good idea to read through everything. However, we are human. With health insurance, it is a good idea that after the policy is approved that you take a good look over some of the particulars. This will be policy effective date, approved premium, premium mode (monthly, quarterly, etc), members on the policy, and if there are any exclusion endorsements on the policy.
This is important because you may go days, or weeks for that matter, without insurance. This could lead to a problem. This is another reason to work with an agent. Even if the insurance company made modifications, such as effective date, the agent will let you know that. You can deal with things accordingly going in to it. This way there are no surprises.
Butch Zemar