AboutLinda Woolsteen Expertise I can help you with questions about health insurance. If you feel your insurance company is mistreating you. Are they telling you they are checking eligibity, pre-existing, etc. Or you just don`t understand how your insurance works or don`t understand what a PPO is.. I can help you.
Experience
Past/Present clients One company I worked for I was the underwriter for the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland and the Ohio Bar Association. I was also a supervisor of our customer service department.
Expert: Linda Woolsteen Date: 6/19/2003 Subject: Health Insurance
Question My company is changing our health insurance provider.
Should I have to answer all the questions about my families
past and present medical conditions. What prescriptions
we are taking etc. I can e-mail you the application form my company wants us to fill out if you like, can you please tell
me if this is perfectly legal or not? Isn't some of this
privileged information?
Answer Hello,
If you have to prove insurability, then yes, you have to answer the health questions.
While I am not an attorney and cannot provide you with legal assistance, I can only advise of the knowledge that I have from being in the insurance industry for approx. 20 years.
My company does request that the medical questions be answered as well. Underwriting may either approve you for the medical coverage, or deny your coverage and or issue the coverage to you with riders on certain medical conditions or give the coverage to you providing you pay add'l premiums.
There are also times when you do not have to answer health questions, I believe it has to do with how many people are in the group, etc, sometimes. Seems that different companies have different polices.
So, to answer your question, yes, the insurance company can ask you to answer the health questions on the application. You are applying for coverage with them and they are a business and want to see if you are a good or bad risk.
