For individuals and families, we bring our 30 years of experience and a passion for finding the right match between the benefits and cost of individual health, dental, and life insurance programs for both under-65 and Medicare-eligible clients.  Please contact us for assistance arranging just the right plan.  In the meantime, if you’d like to see some numbers, click the button below to get your own personalized health insurance quote.

There is no difference in rates no matter how or where you buy coverage, so you won’t find lower prices for the quoted plans anywhere else.

Click Here for a quick & easy proposal.

1. Use the “Shop and Compare” tool at Covered California to determine if you qualify for premium subsidy and if so, how much based on your household size, family member ages, and income.  If your income is below certain limits, you will qualify for Medi-Cal and your application will be routed to Medi-Cal by Covered CA, in which case premium subsidy for a plan other than Medi-Cal will not be available.  Also, note that if you have group health insurance through work and the cost to you is less than 9.5% of your income, you will not qualify for a subsidy through Covered CA, regardless of your income.

2. If you don’t qualify for a premium subsidy or Medi-Cal, decide whether you want to apply directly with the insurer outside of Covered CA using Critzer Insurance Services as your agent, since generally the same or very similar plans a carrier offers through Covered CA will be available direct with that carrier.  Customer service and policy issuance is often quicker and more efficient by applying directly to the insurance company, and the cost of Silver plans is less expensive when applying directly with an insurer. 

3. Carefully check the medical provider network for the plan and insurance company you are applying for coverage with to make sure the doctors and other medical providers you want are in the network.  You can do this directly from our website by quoting the plan. The PPO networks for most insurers offering individual coverage include less doctors and hospitals than the employer group plans from those same insurers, so don’t assume that because you had group coverage at your job with a certain insurer, the same doctor that was in the network on that group plan will be in the network on an individual plan.  You need to specifically check each medical provider you require to be sure they are in the plan’s network.  

4. You can only apply and be accepted for individual coverage at the annual open enrollment or when you involuntarily lose group health coverage or experience certain other “qualifying events”.  Be careful not to allow your coverage to end before you have new replacement coverage, since you might be forced to wait until the next annual open enrollment before you can buy coverage.  If you find yourself with a coverage gap and buy “short-term” coverage to cover you to the next open enrollment, beware that most short-term plans require you to be in good health to obtain a policy and don’t cover health conditions that have been diagnosed or that you’ve been treated for prior to the date the short-term plan begins.  Short-term plans also may not exempt you from tax penalties for being without coverage, since they do not cover all the medical services regular individual plans are required to cover.

5. Allow enough time to apply for coverage.  Because most applications are now submitted only at the annual open enrollment, insurance companies are overwhelmed at open enrollment, as are insurance agents.  So it’s important to leave enough time when applying for coverage to allow for the slower processing and customer service at open enrollment.