“If you like your current health insurance plan, you can keep it.”
Well… that’s not necessarily the case. The question is when you’ll have to change. If you currently have an individual health insurance policy through Cigna and live in South Carolina (or Connecticut), you’ll have to change at the end of this year. The company made the announcement today. We wouldn’t be at all surprised to see similar news affect policyholders in other states.
The announcement means that policy holders will have to transition off of their 2013 (or prior) policies and onto new plans that begin on January 1, 2014, and are therefore fully compliant with all of the new mandates and provisions of the Obamacare law. (It also means that you’ll be paying 2014 pricing!)
If you’re a Cigna policyholder, we suggest you at least shop around to consider other options (and, of course, we’d be happy to help you do that – you can contact us or click the “get a quote” link on the right).
Cigna will likely not be the only carrier that takes this stance. Some (like Carolina Care Plan / Consumers Life) will simply leave the market altogether. There are some, however, that are allowing policyholders to keep their 2013 policies (and, hence, the 2013 pricing) well into 2014 – maybe even until the very end of the year.
Stay tuned…
