Do I need another health insurance policy?
Most of the points by MrChrister are valid. I can't say much for Philippines, however there is a reason for one to go with individual insurance from my experience in India. While I can't say how it is in the Philippines, my wife the insurance broker leads me to believe that individual insurance is more expensive than group coverages in the US almost always.  So much so that people will go to great extents to form any sort of business just to insure themselves. If however it is cheaper, can't you simply opt out of your employer's plan?  If you can opt out, will your employer give you any of the money they aren't paying for your insurance? If you can't opt out, or if you paycheck doesn't grow, I can't see why you would want additional coverage especially at such a young age.  Should you lose your job in the near future and you worry about, go get the insurance then. EDIT One big advantage is if you get personal insurance, you might need to get an exam to qualify, and it is likely the younger you are the better you will qualify. But again, you already have insurance that covers you so I would advise keeping the group policy is probably better. I understand that if I have multiple health insurance policies, I can only make claim from only one of them if ever I incur medical expenses (I'm from the Philippines). In the US, you cannot simultaneously submit a claim for payment of a medical bill, or request reimbursement for a bill already paid, to multiple insurance companies, but if you are covered by more  than one policy, then any part of a claim not paid by one company  can be submitted to another company that is also covering you. In fact, if you have employer-paid or employer-provided coverage, most  insurance companies will want your employer-provided insurance company  to be billed first, and will cover whatever is not paid by the employer coverage. For example, if the employer coverage pays 80% of your doctor's bill, the private insurance will pay the remaining 20%. But, the private  insurance policies are also quite expensive.  Some professional groups in the US offer major medical coverage to  their US members, and might be offering this to non-US members as well (though I suspect not).  These policies have large deductibles so that coverage kicks in only when the total medical expenses in that year (whether wholly or partially reimbursed, or not reimbursed at all) exceed the large deductible.  These types of policies actually pay out to only a few people - if you have more than, say, $20,000 of medical expenses in a year, you have been quite ill,  and thus the premiums are usually much smaller than full-fledged coverage  insurance policies which pay out much more frequently because of much smaller deductibles.
You can open an HSA account with any financial institution that you like, and roll over the money from your current account into the new one.  Since you are no longer in a High Deductible Health Plan, you can't contribute any new money into an HSA, but you can still spend the money in your HSA on eligible medical expenses, until it is gone.  There are lots of things that you can spend HSA money on, so there is no need to cash out and take on taxes and penalties. Yes, there are HSA accounts that don't charge ongoing maintenance fees.  Check with a local credit union; they usually have no-fee HSA accounts. The insurance company is must assume you do have a preexisting condition you are unaware of.  The reason for that is that Affordable Care Act precludes the Insurance company from denying coverage of them if you do.  Insurance companies are businesses.  They are in business to make money(unless you have a nonprofit insurer).  They can not do that if you can buy insurance only when you need for them to pay out.  So even though you may not have a preexisting condition, they are precluded from requiring an examination that would detect the most expensive preexisting conditions (hidden cancers, neurological, autoimmune disorders).  So the companies must do what takes business sense and either deny you coverage or charge a rate that covers the risk they would be forced to take.   In your question on travel there was a response that suggested you get international health insurance instead of travel health insurance that would be considered credible coverage.  You are trying to save money which on a personal level is a good idea.  However that is against the societal and business need that you maintain health coverage during your healthy times to cover the costs of those who need expensive treatment.  So you will be monetarily penalized should you choose to reenter the society of insured people.  Once you have paid the higher rate for up to 18 months you should be able to get a better policy for people who have had continuous coverage.  Alternately you may be lucky enough to start working for a company that provides health insurance with out requiring continuous coverage. "This article has a section titled ""Do you need an umbrella policy to cover your personal liability risks?"" that says: If you have young children, for example, you might need a policy   because they have lots of friends. These little tikes might get into   some mischief and hurt themselves at your home. If so, you’re at risk   of being sued. Do you have people over often? Do you drive like a maniac or a   Parisian? Do you have firearms on your premises? Do you have gardeners   and housekeepers on the grounds? All these are reasons why you might   want to own an umbrella policy. Although many people in the US are homeowners, parents, drivers, etc., not everyone falls into these categories. For some people, as low as the premiums for such a policy might be,  the expected cost outweighs the expected benefit. The cost of a lawsuit may be extremely high, but someone may feel that the chance of a lawsuit being filed against them is low enough to be safely ignored and not worth insuring against. I'm probably not a great example, but I'll use my own situation anyway. Even though a liability policy probably wouldn't cost me too much, I'm almost certain that I wouldn't derive any benefit from it. I live alone without children (or firearms, pet tigers, gardeners, etc.) in a 520 sq. ft. apartment, so the probability that something bad would happen to someone on the small bit of property that I rent and that they would file a sizable lawsuit against me is small enough that I choose to ignore it." "In general, if you can afford to replace something, you are able to ""self-insure"".  You really want to understand a little of the statistics before you can make a generic call, but my rule of thumb is that insurance via ""extended warranty"" is rarely a good deal.  Here is a simple expected value math formula you can apply (when the > is true, then you should buy it): replacement cost x likelihood of using warranty % > cost of insurance You can then back-compute, what is the likelihood that I'd need to lose this item to break even?  Given your numbers: $2000 x Y > $350 or Y > (350/2000) or Y > 17.5% So if you think there is a 17.5% or greater chance that you'll need to have you system replaced (i.e. not just a simple fix) AND (as Scott pointed out) you'll be able to actually use the replacement warranty then the applecare is a good purchase.  Note, this only applies to items you can replace out-of-pocket without significant burden, because if you didn't have the $10k to replace your car, it wouldn't matter if the insurance wasn't such a good deal (especially if you need the car to get to work, etc.) So the obvious question is: ""Why would a for-profit company ever offer insurance on something they are statistically likely to lose money on?""  The obvious answer is ""they wouldn't,"" but that doesn't mean you should never buy this type of insurance, because you may have statistically significant circumstances. For instance, I purchased a $40 remote helicopter as a gift for my children.  I also paid the $5 for a ""no questions asked"" warranty on it because, knowing my kids, I knew there was a nearly 100% chance they would break it at least once.  In this case, this warranty was well worth the $5, because they did break it!  Presumably they make money on these warranties because most of the purchasers of the plan are more attentive (or too lazy to make the claim) than in this case. Edit note: I incorporated Scott's comment about likelihood of being able to utilize the warranty into a combined ""likelihood of using warranty"" term.  This term could be broken up into likelihood of needing replacement x likelihood of actually getting company to replace it I didn't do this above because it makes it a little harder to understand, and may not be a major factor in all cases, but you can definitely add it after the fact (i.e. if there's only a 90% chance Applecare will pay out at all, then divide the 17.5% by 0.9 to get 19.4% likelihood of needing the replacement for it to be cost effective). More complete formulas can be derived also (including terms for full replacement costs vs repair costs and including terms for ""deductible"" type costs or shipping), but I'm trying to keep things relatively simple for those who aren't statistics nerds like I am." If the child can take over the life insurance when they wish to get a mortgage or have their own children, there may be a case for buying insurance for the child in the event that your child's health is not good enough for them to get cover at that time. However I don’t think this type of insurance is worth having. At their age, the likely did not even need the coverage anymore unless they were doing some major estate planning.  If that's the case then it sound like they purchased the wrong policy to begin with since OP's account of the information makes it sound like a term policy.  If it is a term policy, the term was also probably about to end as well.    In the end, this will likely not be a bog deal. "In addition to the good answers already provided, I want to point out that many (most?) providers will handle filing your health insurance claim for you even though it's really your responsibility. So here's how medical bills ""you don't have to pay"" might come about: * It's possible that your balance is $4, or $20, or $65, or even still $100 depending on your particular insurance plan. Whatever is left at this step is what you pay." If you do not presently have an HSA-compatible insurance plan, you cannot legally add money to your HSA. You can still withdraw, but you can't add. So basically your choice are to let the money sit there and be nibbled away by the monthly fees, to withdraw it anyway and pay the tax penalty, or to spend it on whatever medical expenses you do have. I have no idea what your expenses are, how good your present insurance is and how often you and any dependents see a doctor or get prescriptions. If you used it for ALL uncovered expenses, how long would it take to use it up? "Probably not, though there are a few things to be said for understanding what you are doing here.  Primerica acts as an independent financial services firm and thus has various partners that specialize in various financial instruments and thus there may exist other firms that Primerica doesn't use that could offer better products.  Now, how much do you want to value your time as it could take more than a few months to go through every possible insurance firm and broker to see what rate you could get for the specific insurance you want.  There is also the question of what constitutes best here.  Is it paying the minimal premiums before getting a payout?  That would be my interpretation though this requires some amazing guesswork to know when to start paying a policy to pay out so quickly that the insurance company takes a major loss on the policy. Similarly, there are thousands of mutual funds out there and it is incredibly difficult to determine which ones would be best for your situation.  How much risk do you want to take?  How often do you plan to add to it?  What kind of accounts are you using for these investments, e.g. IRAs or just regular taxable accounts?  Do tax implications of the investments matter? Thus, I'd likely want to suggest you consider this question: How much trust do you have that this company will work well for you in handling the duty of managing your investments and insurance needs?  If you trust them, then buy what they suggest.  If you don't, then buy somewhere else but be careful about what kind of price are you prepared to pay to find the mythical ""best"" as those usually only become clear in hindsight. When it comes to trusting a company in case, there are more than a few factors I'd likely use: Questions - How well do they answer your questions or concerns from your perspective?  Do you feel that these are being treated with respect or do you get the feeling they want to say, ""What the heck are you thinking for asking that?"" in a kind of conceited perspective. Structure of meeting - Do you like to have an agenda and things all planned out or are you more of the spontaneous, ""We'll figure it out"" kind of person?  This is about how well do they know you and set things up to suit you well. Tone of talk - Do you feel valued in having these conversations and working through various exercises with the representative?  This is kind of like 1 though it would include requests they have for you. Employee turnover - How long has this person been with Primerica?  Do they generally lose people frequently?  Are you OK with your file being passed around like a hot potato?  Not that it necessarily will but just consider the possibility here. Reputation can be a factor though I'd not really use it much as some people can find those bad apples that aren't there anymore and so it isn't an issue now.  In some ways you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.  There are more than a few companies that want to get a piece of what you'll invest, buy, and use when it comes to financial products so it may be a good idea to shop around a little." "I would phrase it this way: if someone needs costly procedures, especially for conditions they caused themselves, then, yes, those procedures will not be covered, and they are not covered in all National Healthcare systems in the world.  It's immoral to cover a liver transplant for a drunk or extended hospitalization for an obese person while an old lady cannot get an aid to stay independent in her home because it's not covered in the medical insurance.  And I have no issue if the ACA will be repealed before a replacement is put in place. This will be the fastest way to get a replacement.  It seems to me that you are not familiar with how National Health Care systems work, and so I will give you personal example, of my aunt, covered by the excellent national healthcare in Israel. And I mean it: it's one of the best National Health Care systems in the world.  Her hips locked suddenly and she had to have a hip replacement. ""No problems!"" said the doctors: ""You will get hip replacement, totally covered by the insurance"". ""But, you have to wait 3 months for that."" So my aunt said ""But I got supplemental private medical insurance"" (every one smart in Israel who can afford it get that.) ""Why didn't you tell us?"" asked the doctors, ""you will have the hip replacement done next week, with better parts."" And so it happened.  My aunt thought that, at least, the recovery and rehab in the hospital will be covered by her standard insurance. So, in the morning after the surgery, the nurse comes and says ""please make a choice: either I come once in the morning to take you out of bed to the toilet and some rehab, or, once in the evening"".  My aunt chose none of the options, and paid out of her pocket (partially covered by her private insurance) to stay in a private hospital.  Do you get it?  But in Israel, an obese women will get her 3rd artificial insemination to have her 3rd baby + an aid to help her raise her kids because she's too fat to care of the her children. We have that nonsense in Israel." As others have said, it depends entirely on what benefits are provided, and how much of the cost of those benefits is paid by the employer and how much is paid by the employee, and compare that to what it would cost to obtain the necessary/equivalent coverage without employer assistance. In my case, my employer pays more than $10,000 per year toward the cost of medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance for myself and my family. That's almost 20% of the average total household income in my state, so it is not an insignificant amount at all. Insurance is for events that are both and Unexpected and, for many people, catastrophic events are, for example, sickness, disability, death, car accidents, house fires, and burglaries, for which you may buy health, disability, life, auto, home, and renter's insurance.  It may be catastrophic for a family relying on a very old earner for that earner to die, and you can buy life insurance up to a very old age, but the premiums will reflect the likelihood of someone of that age dying within the covered period.  The more expected an event is, the more anything referred to as insurance is actually forced savings. Health insurance with no copays on regular checkups expects the insured to use them, so the cost of those checkups plus a profit for the insurance company is factored into the premiums ahead of time.  A wooden pencil breaking may be unexpected. Regardless of foreseeability, no one buys insurance on wooden pencils, as the loss of a pencil is not catastrophic. What is catastrophic can be context dependent. Health-care needs are typically unforeseeable, as you don't know when you'll get sick. For a billionaire, needing health-care, while unforeseeable, the situation would not be catastrophic, and the billionaire can easily self-insure his or her health to the same extent as most caps offered by health insurance companies. If you're on a fixed budget buying a laptop, if it unexpectedly failed, that would be catastrophic to you, so budgeting in the cost of insurance or an extended warranty while buying your laptop would probably make sense. Especially if you need that $2000 laptop, spending an extra 17.5% would safeguard against you having to come out of pocket and depleting your savings to replace it, even though that brings you to a grand total of $2350 before taxes. However, if you're in that tight of a situation, I would strongly recommend you to find a less expensive option that would allow you to self-insure. If you found a used laptop for much less (I can even see Apple selling refurbished Macs for less than $1000) you might decide that your budget allows you to self-insure, and you could profit from being careful with your hardware and resolving to cover any issues with it yourself. Another source of insurance can be through the working spouses employment. Some companies do provide free or low cost coverage for spouses without a need for a physical exam. The risk is that it might not be available at the amount you want, and that if the main spouse switches companies it might not be available with the new employer. A plus is that if there is a cost it is only a one year commitment. Term insurance is the way to go. It is simple to purchase, and not complex to understand. Sizing is key. You may need to provide some level of coverage until the youngest child is in high school or college. Of course the youngest child might not have been born yet. The longer the term, the higher the cost to account for the inflation during the period of the insurance. If the term expires, but the need still exists, it is possible to get another policy but the cost of the new term policy will be higher because the insured is older. If there are special needs children involved the amount and length may need to be increased due to the increased costs and duration of need.   Don't forget to periodically review the insurance situation to make sure your need haven't changed so much a new level of insurance would be needed. You only need umbrella policy for large amounts of liability protection (I think they usually start with $1M). So if you don't have and don't expect to have assets at such a high value - why would you need the insurance? Your homeowners/renters/car/travel insurance should be enough, and you still need to have those for umbrella since its on top of the existing coverage, not instead. Many people just don't have enough assets to justify such a high coverage. Yes factor into your fund the cost of health insurance.  You basically have three options when facing a loss of income for 3-6 months: Pre-ACA the COBRA one was the default option many planned for because there was no need to change doctors. Of course many people were shocked how expensive it was compared to just looking at the employees share of the monthly premium. For planning you can do some research into the cost of one of the ACA approved plans in your state. Keeping in mind that the lack of income might qualify you for a subsidy. As to the coverage level, that would depend on your situation and the perceived gap. I have known many people who didn't have to pick COBRA until after the new job started so they knew exactly what they needed to cover and what their bills were during the gap.