Health Insurance: What Happens After Leaving Your Job?

Large companies today provide health insurance benefits to their employees where the bulk of the monthly premiums are shared by the company. The great thing about this program is that you and your family will be able to get the best possible coverage at a very low price. However, the question is what if you leave your job?

Basically, the answer is also a question which is can you still afford to keep your health insurance?

The US government basically passed a law back in 1986 that gave employees and their immediate family members the choice and the right to continue their personal or family health insurance. This particular law is called the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act or COBRA.

However, you may want to keep in mind that there are limitations when you do decide to continue on with your personal or family health care plan that your company offered. The first is that you will only have up to 18 months to stay on the plan. After this, you and your family will no longer be covered. You can consider this as a type of short term health care plan where you will still be covered up until you get a new policy.

Another thing that you need to remember when you decide to continue your health care plan is that you need to pay for the premiums. This means that the company you once worked for will no longer shoulder part of the expenses on monthly premium. You need to pay all of it and usually it will be expensive.

Although there are exceptions, you need to consider that this will be able to provide you with protection and coverage even when you no longer work for the company. For the same policy, the former employee will need to pay a hundred percent of the premium cost. In fact, there are some cases where former employees need to pay more than a hundred percent just to let them keep the health care plan they were provided with for up to 18 more months.

Depending on your current health condition, you will see that there are cheaper health care plans available.

So, if you plan on leaving your job and you are worrying about your health insurance, you may want to check with the company's human resources first. Try asking about the health care plan they provided you with and also ask how much it will cost if you leave the job or if you were fired.

Remember these things and you can be sure that you will be able to decide whether or not you should keep your existing health insurance plan that was provided by your employer.