As unemployment rises, health insurers boost individual plans - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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has increased its number of individual-pla n offerings to 38 from 22, raisinh the possible deductible for such plansto $15,0000 from $10,000. A 30-year-old seekiny a Blue Cross plan now has options ranginyg froma $200-a-month premium with a $1,009 deductible to a $60-a-month premiujm with a $15,000 deductible. “As we started talking to our customersw about what their actua lneeds were, we found there was actually more demand for product variety, not said Shawn Patterson, vice president of marketingf at the Eagan-based Blue Cross’ move comes nine months after Bloomington-based expanded its individual-plah types.
Last year, Minnetonka-based Medica started sellingy its Medica Encore plans geared toward peopler intheir 50s. It plans to unveil more individuapl productsnext year. All of the major insurer s are finding that individual plans are a small but rapidlt growing portion oftheirr businesses. HealthPartners, which has 21,000 people on individual has seen enrollment growabout 1,0000 a month for the past threee months. Medica reports that individual-plan enrollment in 2008 jumpe d 70 percent tonearly 15,000. Blue Cross had about 175,000 individual plan members at the endof 2008, a 30 percent increase from five years before.
“We suspect the whole marketplace for individuals is growingv as a result of a lot of different whether that happens to be because of whether that is the result of small businessez no longer providing coverage fortheir employees,” Patterson said. Roger Feldman, a professor of healtj policy and management atthe , said the recession has createc enough of a demand for individual planws that the state’s largest insurers are competing more for them by offering more options. He recentlg looked up plans that might work forhis 26-year-ols son, and found that Blue Cross, HealthPartners and Medicas each had a plan that fit his son’sw needs.
“The premiums were prettuy close. The benefits were pretty he said. Gregory Sailer, president of in Lake Elmo, said the individual-plansw market is seeing a lot of The individual market is important enough for Blue Cross that it planzs to advertise on TV stations across the It wouldn’t disclose how much it’s paying for the ad The ads, planned by Rochester, N.Y.-based ., will features shoppers at learning about the Direct Choice Inc. of Wayne, Pa., is handlin g a direct-mail marketing campaign.
Blue Cross also plans to offefr a tool on its Web site for prospective customers to calculatew which health plan might fit thembest — somethintg HealthPartners has had in place for a few months. HealthPartners says it’s pleased with the resultx of its decision to increaseits offerings. Last July it unveiled five individual plan each with a dozen possible There used to bea $1,000 difference between each deductibl HealthPartners offered; now it’s $250. Andrea Walsh, executivre vice president and chiefmarketing officer, said HealthPartnerxs was sensitive to the fact that coverage is expensive.
“Wes need to provide more flexibility for people to afforx good healthcare coverage.”