Florida Health Insurance Maternity Coverage

If you are not planning on getting pregnant, you better start planning for it anyways if you are still child bearing just in case.  It seems that there is a misconception (no pun intended) about maternity benefits and assuming that there is coverage inluded in one s health insurance policy.  That is true but only when the person in Florida is insured through their employer plan better known as their Florida Group Health Plan.   There may have been a time when these Florida individual and family health plans included maternity like some of the small Miami-Dade HMOs, but of course, a little issue called moral hazard kept occurring, where women bought the plans after they decided to get pregnant.  This moral hazard cost the health insurance companies some of their profits.  And of course, the one thing you don t want to do is mess with their profits unless you like swimming with fishes or waking up with a horse s head in your bed.

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Maternity Plans in Florida Today

So, of course, today no individual and family Florida health insurance plan comes with maternity and is usually only available as a rider or supplement.  This option usually costs minimally $110 per month in Florida and additional in most cases.  The other drawback, of course, is the waiting period which is usually 12 months or even 15 months depending on the benefits and the specific health insurance company.  Finally, these plans also have high exposure with high deductibles and coinsurance.  If you plan on buying maternity coverage in Florida try to budget at least $2000 for the entire birth and additionally, the actual maternity insurance itself is about $1200 minimally, but of course it is usually more as most people do not get pregnant and give birth right away.  So, the average premiums that are spent is usually an additionally $2000.  Also it is important to contact your local hospital and doctor prior to getting coverage, because in many cases you can work out an arrangement with them to pay cash for the birth and it will be cheaper than adding the maternity rider to your current individual health policy.  If it is, and as long as you have decent health coverage in case of complication, I would think this is a viable alternative to paying the insurance company and the hospital just to get mediocre coverage to begin with.

Health Insurance Plans in Florida that Offer Maternity

Then again, if you go with CoventryOne s South Florida HMO plan you pay $110 per month and they cover the whole birth and all checkups leading up to the delivery for $1000.  This is the best maternity plan available right now, besides Medicaid if you qualify and usually it is fairly easy to get Medicaid (though being pregnant happen to be the only time it is easy to get Medicaid).

CoventryOne and United Health Care Maternity Plans

There are also maternity plans available in Florida right now from United Health Care and Avmed.  Of these plans as I said Coventry One of South Florida is certainly the most comprehensive even though it has the longest waiting period. United Health Care s maternity plan is also attractive because you can pregnant the day after the policy is issued so you can usually get your money out of there.  The only time I recommend this plan though is if you know you want to have a child right away and can pregnant within at most 5 months of being on the plan.

Avmed s health insurance plan has an excellent maternity plan as well, though it is $197 per month and in my view not as cost effective as the others we discussed.  Personally, though I love Avmed and if your demographic happens to make this policy the most affordable for maternity (which does happen) I would tell you to buy that policy.  I hope one day, that I can sell exclusively Avmed as I so whole-heartedly believe not only in their product but the people that work there as well.  Humana, Aetna, Cigna, and Coventry (PPO plans) do not offer individual and family maternity plans as of now, so really there are only a select few.

I am married and when we decide to have children I am most likely going to go without this coverage and instead either set up a group plan, or just pay cash.  I live in South Florida, and my wife is in fact on Vista though we do not pay for maternity and are going to have children within the next 1-5 years.