How to get the Lowest Price

• Compare between insurance companies using our quoting system
• Take a plan with higher out-of-pocket exposure (deductible + coinsurance + copays)
• Don't pay for features that are unimportant to you
• Don't use tobacco

How can you Guarantee the Best Price?

All the plans and their premium prices must be filed by the insurance company with your state's insurance regulator and must be approved. We do not own or possess insurance for resale. Insurance is not stocked on the store shelf and resold.

Only the insurer that you buy from sets the premium price for you. We help you understand and apply for a plan, but that help does not change how much you pay for the insurance. We don't charge you anything. We are paid what the insurer alone sets for us to be paid. So it is impossible for there to be a better premium price for the same coverage from the same insurer.

One Person, One Plan, One Premium

For the same plan from the same insurer, there is no one you can go to for a better premium price than what any one else can offer.

For any given plan, every health insurance company has only ONE premium price for you. Irrespective of where, how, or from whom you get an application, each and every reputable health insurance company will offer you only ONE premium at any time for a particular coverage.

The insurer's rates are subject to regulation and must be filed with the state's department/division of insurance. They can't file ten different rates for the exact same thing. It's one for one. One thing, one charge.

In this respect, it's like going to a local store. They have one price marked for each item, not four or five depending on which cashier you go to. Similarly, for the same insurance policy, the same insurer can have only one charge for the same person, according to whatever that person's risk category is.

There is no good reason for it to be otherwise. Whoever supplies the initial insurer quotes and helps with the application is not relevant to the premium price, whether you get it from an insurer's employee or an insurer's independent contractor, commonly known as an agent or broker but licensed in most states as a "producer". Only the insurance company possesses the right to issue its insurance coverage and set the charge for it.

That's how it works – ONE insurer, ONE person, ONE plan, ONE premium price.

Rebate Bribery

One idea promoted by some misguided consumer advocates in the hope of making insurance more affordable, is to allow rebate bribery. Overall, it does not make insurance more affordable, but is allowed in a couple of states.

For individual/family health insurance, the sections below are generally true in all states, except for the anomaly of California and Florida. In those two states, independent people selling insurance are allowed to bribe insurance buyers by giving away some of their own money in order to be the one who collects the commission payment set for them by the insurance company. In all other states, grubbing for applications using bribery is not allowed.

It's called commission rebating, but it's really the payment of a bribe from the producer to the applicant. That is because the commission check from the insurance company is sent to the producer and is made out in the name of the producer only. The applicant's name is not on the check. So the producer is giving away money from the producer's personal assets, no matter where they came from, in an attempt to influence a decision. Allowing this bribery may seem to benefit the consumer, but it is self-defeating because it cannot in the long run reduce the cost of insurance. Competition to offer the best product value is between insurance companies, not between insurance producers (agents/brokers). The only competition between producers in this case is a bribery competition.

This sort of petty bribery is of little consumer benefit because if the practice became widespread, the level of payment set by the insurer would have to be increased to compensate for the cost of bribery which otherwise would drive too many producers out of the insurance business. Consumers would be charged more by the insurance companies to enable the insurers to pay the higher level of compensation to their salespeople. An escalating cycle of bribery increases followed by commission increases would ensue if such bribery became a common practice.

The level of rebate bribery would be increased again and again by those sales people who are the most desperate, and have to be handled by the insurance company by again raising the level of payment to enable independent people to make a living by selling insurance. The possibility of this preposterous situation arising is prevented in all but two states by laws prohibiting rebate bribery. So far, it has not caught on very much.

Supporters of rebate bribery apparently do not want helpful, intelligent people educated in insurance, to find it worthwhile to sell insurance. In what other occupation is it necessary to bribe consumers using personal income in an attempt to make a living?

Use Licensed Producers

Licensed independent contractors, often called agents or brokers, are licensed in many states as "producers" because the only reason for agents/brokers to be in business is to help insurance companies get applications, i.e., they produce new business. Most insurers have found that using independent contractors is more cost-effective than using employees only to obtain applications.

An agent/broker/producer does not add a markup to the insurance or adjust the commission from the insurer so as to result in different premiums for the same health insurance plan from different producers. Even if a producer wanted to bribe you with part of his/her income (rebate bribery) out of desperation to get the payment from the insurer instead of another producer, rebate bribery is not permitted by law and regulation in all but two states. So in all but two states, the cost of insurance also can not be adjusted using bribery.

You apply direct to the insurer with producer assistance and are charged whatever the insurance company decides to charge applicants in your risk category. The producer is not a retailer who is buying and reselling insurance merchandise it owns or possesses. The producer is authorized to disseminate information about a company's insurance products and to help you apply for those products whose cost to you is what the insurer has set.

Using a producer can be better than going to the insurance company to get the application because the producer will remain available to serve as your advocate with the insurer if needed. That's free extra help you don't get if you avoid using a producer to apply.

When a large insurance brokerage company charges a fee for insurance consulting services to a large corporation, this should not be confused with the same brokerage or an individual acting as a producer for an insurance company. When a consumer buys insurance with the assistance of a producer, that is not a fee-paid consultation service. The process is not one of recommendation or advice, but explanation of an insurance product with the aim of making a sale and earning a payment from the insurer for bringing in business.

All Set by the Insurer

Producers are paid a commission set by the insurer, not the producer, for producing an application as an overhead cost of the insurer doing business. Since producers perform a function for the insurer as a more economical substitute for media advertising and employees doing the same thing, they do not charge a fee, unlike broker/dealers in stocks or real estate brokers who do charge fees. Different meanings of "broker" should not be confused with each other.

So no one on the internet or at any insurance company's office can have a lower price than when you apply using our website or our assistance. We do not charge you anything and can help you with information on many insurers.

All quotes are set by the insurers, not by us. Quotes are a premium that some applicants will get, but not all applicants will necessarily get that premium. After reviewing your application, an insurer may offer you a higher premium or put an exclusion rider on a particular medical condition or decline your application, unless there is a law to the contrary.

It is not possible to get a better price for the same plan anywhere on the internet.

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