If you just lost your job and your employer-sponsored group health insurance plan, a conversion plan is one way to get affordable health insurance in Pennsylvania.
Conversion coverage is an individual health insurance policy from the same company that gave your employer and his or her employees group health insurance. If you had group health insurance through your employer for at least three months, you are eligible for conversion health insurance. When you buy a conversion health insurance plan in Pennsylvania, you have to pay the premiums that your employer may have paid for you in the past. However, you can't be turned down because of a medical condition.
Conversion insurance is a type of affordable health insurance in Pennsylvania that covers you and anyone else who was covered by your employer's group health insurance plan before. This includes your children and your spouse, even if you are no longer together. As long as the person is your dependent and was previously covered by your health insurance policy, he or she can also be covered by your conversion coverage plan.
You can't get conversion health coverage if you already have or are eligible for similar coverage from another group health insurance plan or a government health care programme like Medicare. Most of the time, if you qualify for Federal COBRA health care coverage, you also have to use it all up.
As part of conversion health insurance plans, you must be told what your health insurance rights are once you lose your job. You have 31 days from the time you are told to apply for conversion coverage. Contact your employer, the health insurance company from which your employer bought the employer-sponsored group health insurance plan, or the Insurance Department of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania if you haven't been told about your health insurance rights under conversion health insurance plans.
