Best Health Quotes

Illinois Group Health Insurance (Employer Sponsored)

BestHealthQuotes.com offers an Illinois Group Health Insurance Quote Engine where you can create your own Unicare Health Insurance Company quotes.  It is designed for the average consumer to quote their own group plan and is very simple to use. Unicare has the most competitive premium pricing and has the most flexible line of products by far for Illinois and Chicago.   

If you prefer to have us quote your plan for you, simply send us an email with:  

• Full company name and physical address  
   
• Telephone number with email address
    
• Type of business (description)
   
• Census of group, list of employee’s to be insured with their gender and date of birth & dependants to be covered. 

Or you can simply call us at (800)-897-5699 and we can take your information over the phone and have a business proposal back to you within 2 hours. 

What is group health insurance?

 Group health insurance coverage is a policy that is purchased by an employer and is offered to eligible employees, normally employees working 30 or more hours and often to the employees’ family members as a benefit of working for their company. The majority of Americans have group health insurance coverage through their employer or the employer of their spouse.

Are all group plans the same in the state of Illinois?

Many  Americans today work for small employers, which for health insurance purposes are generally those with 50 employees or less. Quite a few other Americans get their health insurance benefits through very large employers. Generally speaking, those are businesses with over 50 employees. The way premium rates are determined differ when calculating rates on small groups vs. large groups. Normally, the rates designed for large groups are lower due to the fact there is a higher degree of premiums being generated and the risk is more spread out. Simply put, large group health plans are more profitable for the provider.

Coverage requirements for group health plans in Illinois

Illinois and federal laws state that no matter what pre-existing health conditions employees may have,  no company or single employee can be turned down by an insurance company when applying for group coverage. This requirement is known in the insurance industry as (guaranteed issue). In addition, each insurance company must renew its employer health plan contract every year, at the employer’s discretion, unless there is non-payment of premium, the employer has committed fraud or a form of misrepresentation, or the employer will not abide with the terms of the health insurance policy otherwise known as a contract.

In Illinois, group health insurance carriers are permitted to observe group applicants medical histories for pre-existing conditions and may decide not to cover certain conditions for a specified period of time. This is known as an exclusion, otherwise known as a pre-existing condition elimination or waiting  period. The states that small group health insurance companies may impose no more than a twelve month exclusion period for pre-existing conditions. Group insurance providers are also required to give employees a credit for prior coverage. This would be applied against a pre-existing condition waiting period that may be implemented, as long as the employee had other health insurance coverage within 63 days of the application for their new group plan.

What is the least amount of employees a company can have in order to establish a new Illinois group health insurance plan? 

In the land of Lincoln, it is only 2 people. These must be full time employees that work a minimum of 30 hours a week or more and draw an income from the employer. Financial records are required by the insurance company to prove this also. The participation requirements must also be meet. Normally this requirement would be at least 75% or the qualified full time employees must apply with the percentage going down as low as 50%, if there are qualified waivers, such as an employee having group coverage with his or her spouse.