Health Insurance for College Students

When students head off to college, the last thing they would think about is health insurance. However, many colleges now require students to have health insurance before they can enroll in classes. Although many students may find this to be a hassle, it would be a good idea to carry insurance anyways because if you got into a serious accident you could end up with a huge medical bill. That could potentially cause you to drop out of school. There are several avenues you can take to get health insurance for college students.

The easiest and best way to get health insurance is to join your parent’s employer sponsored coverage. Employer sponsored health insurance is the best because it covers the most. Plus this coverage cannot exclude you due to pre-existing conditions. The health care reform bill allows students to stay under their parent’s coverage until 26 years old.

If you parents do not have health insurance or you cannot join for some reason, you could also find health insurance for students in college through your university. Your college’s health insurance is generally inexpensive and is good for international students too. The plans usually do well in preventing disease through immunizations. The problem with this type of coverage is that they are not good for covering major medical bills. The insurance usually has a cap on the amount of money it will spend per condition. If you had a serious chronic disease like cancer, it would easily go over the cap and it would be up to you to cover the rest.

If you do not find college health insurance that appeals to you, you could also buy individual health plans too. Individual health insurance is usually pretty cheap especially if you are young and healthy. The older you get, the higher the premium gets. Some insurance companies are even offering insurance that are specifically geared towards students who do not want school based insurance and cannot join their parent’s plan.

Before you decide on the best health insurance policy, be sure to compare all the plans and read the fine print. You do not want to end up buying a policy that looks like it is cheap and covers a lot but in fact does not cover much. Pay special attention to the caps on the insurance payout.