Hi, this is George Geldin of Geldin Insurance Services with a California Individual Insurance update for February 2014.

This has been a tumultuous time during this initial Open Enrollment Period.

By one carrier’s account, last year, in 2013, they had approximately 5,000
individual applications and, right now, during the Open Enrollment Period,
they’ve had over 200,000 applications.

With this tremendous volume of business,
the insurance carriers have been overwhelmed and
are having a difficult time enrolling people efficiently and accurately,
as well as making changes for subscribers, billing appropriately, and
just simply doing normal service issues for everyone.

We’ve seen the wait times for assistance on their dedicated
service lines balloon to as long as two hours or more.

Obviously, this is very, very frustrating for everybody.

What does this mean to you?

I think fist, you need to be alert.

You need to be alert with all the materials you get in the mail,
communications you get in the mail from your carrier
to make sure that everything you receive is accurate.

And, if it’s not, then you have to move to make sure it is accurate and
make sure the corrections are made.

Also, I think it’s very, very important to find that well of patience
within you, because everybody is overwhelmed with this tremendous workload and
no one is able to do the work that they normally do as effectively
as they had in the past so we just all have to kind of work together,
and just be patient.

It’s easy to say, it is harder to do.

The other thing that’s very important are the deadlines that are approaching.

Here are deadlines for open enrollment this Open Enrollment Period:

• You must apply by March 15 for an April 1st effective date for your individual insurance. This on exchange, meaning through Covered California, as well as directly through the insurance carrier.
• If you apply after March 15th, by March 31st, you will get a May 01, 2014 effective date on your health insurance.
• The last day to apply during this open enrollment period is March 31st, 2014.
• Unless there is a special qualifying event, there are no new enrollments or plan changes until the next open enrollment period for 2015.
• The 2015 Open Enrollment Period begins on October 15th, 2014.

So, if you’re not set with your health insurance,
are not set with making changes on your health insurance,
look into it and we’re here to help you.

Have a wonderful day, afternoon or evening, whenever you’re seeing this.
Be well and happy, and we will keep pushing for you!

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