For many individuals, obtaining decent health insurance with pre-existing conditions can be a formidable task. A person does not necessarily have to be terribly unhealthy and still find it difficult to qualify medically for an individual major medical insurance policy through a private carrier. Try finding a carrier who will approve health insurance for diabetes patients, for example. Or in many situations if a person has a history of high blood pressure and/or cholesterol and that individual is also even slightly overweight it may be difficult to secure insurance in that scenario. Some conditions are more insurable than others. And some carriers will accept certain conditions where others might decline.

The reasons for this are clear. A health insurance company would stand to quickly go out of business if they were to accept, for example, across the board all diabetics, or even current or recent cancer or heart patient applicants for health insurance. If such applicants were to expect that they could get a policy for lets say around $150-300 a month (as might be charged for a healthy applicant) and now there is a great likelihood that the carrier will be exposed to several hundred thousand or even millions in claims from even one such applicant, it is easy to see why health carriers routinely deny coverage to these types of applicants.

Often times a person who has been insured, for example, through an employers group policy is often surprised to find out upon separation of service or retirement that the very same health insurance company who they had had for years through that employer will not approve them for an individually underwritten policy due to preexisting conditions that they have in their medical history of one kind or another.

Or an individual who is self-employed and cannot qualify for a true group insurance policy due to all of the various constraints of securing true group coverage, may find it especially difficult to qualify if he or she has been diagnosed with certain pre-existing conditions in the past.

So what can someone in this situation do to secure adequate health insurance with preexisting conditions? There may be a number of public and private sources for pre-existing conditions health insurance coverage available in your state. It may be advisable to speak with an insurance agent or broker, or a Registered Health Underwriter who specializes in insurance for pre-existing conditions.

I will be discussing more specifically in detail some of these options in an upcoming article. In the meantime, please see my website for further information about pre-existing conditions