I’m looking into health insurance options for myself and the kids. At the new job, I could get insurance in a number of configurations: myself; myself and spouse; myself and children; entire family.
The prices and options are pretty typical for other places I’ve worked, but it does leave me wondering: Why does someone like me, with four children to insure, pay the same price as someone who has only one child? It would seem fairer to charge a fee per child.
I’m not complaining, because obviously I’d be paying a lot more than a smaller family, but I don’t understand the logic (or perhaps the math) behind it.
I believe they base their rates on statistics. They know they will collect enough from the “group” to cover expenses, otherwise they wouldn’t be in business. I would look at the small print, look at the limits and deductibles, they leverage their losses with these constraints.
I’ve never heard a good argument for this, or for why I, an individual privacy policy holder (self-employed), have to pay more for each child, while a group policy holder doesn’t. Grr. :mad:
This is the only time in a parent’s life when kids are cheap.
If a child doesn’t have congenital problems, and lives past the first birthday, the insurance company won’t have to pay much. All those ear infections, bouts with tonsilitis, etc. are cheap and easy to treat. By a big, big margin, the leading cause of death for children is accidents.
By contrast, adults have an annoying habit of getting sick, getting sicker than children, and taking more time to recover. Covering entire families at a relatively low bump over individual coverage is a sales incentive for the insurance company, not really a break for the parent.
I’m no expert, but my educated guess is that the administrative costs for collecting the data and specifying premiums based on the exact number of children would cost more than the value of having slightly more accurate rates.