Page 4 - Cover letter and evaluation for Darlene Hoover

If you decide to get a Medigap policy, it’s good to give some thought as to the company that
you will buy your policy from and to make a few calls to get current quotes. While it’s important
to go with a company that has relatively low premiums, you may also want to factor in a
company’s financial strength and size. As a rule, larger companies have slightly lower annual
premium increases, according to a government study a few years ago.

Some premiums in the CSG Actuarial comparisons appear to be inaccurate. As an example, the
UnitedHealthcare/AARP premium for Plan N shown in Appendix B2 is shown at $3,630 a year,
which doesn’t make sense. In other instances, the premiums may be lower than you can get
because the commissions may not be included (unfortunately, there’s no way to filter these out
or for me to know which ones they are). Most of these premiums, though, should be close to
current quotes. The state of Indiana also uses the CSG Actuarial premiums, which you can
access at the following link:

https://tools.csgactuarial.com/medicare-supplement

Despite their occasional inaccuracies, CSG Actuarial’s premiums can be helpful in a couple of
ways. First, they can serve as a starting point to identify the companies that have lower
premiums; second, these quotes also show the insurance companies’ financial ratings by A.M
Best and (for the larger companies) Standard & Poor. They do not show the companies’ phone
numbers, which can be found in Appendix B1.

For the UnitedHealthcare/AARP quotes, you may be able to get a more reliable estimate at the
UHC website. After entering your zip code, date of birth and other information, you will see
quotes that should be current (but you still must contact AARP to get an actual quote). To see
an online (albeit non-binding) quote from UHC/AARP, go to this link:

https://www.uhcmedicaresolutions.com/health-plans/medicare-supplement-plans.html

Discounts

Insurance companies that sell Medigap policies offer discounts of various kinds. As an example,
some companies have discounts for automatic debit payments of monthly premiums or for
paying for a year’s premiums in advance. The largest discounts are typically available when
both spouses buy their policies from the same company. While not all companies offer these
“household discounts,” the ones that do often have substantially reduced premiums. The
premiums listed in Appendices B2 and B3 have the household discounts applied for those
companies that offer them

The UnitedHealthcare/AARP Medigap policies, which account for almost one-third of all
Medigap sales, have an early enrollment discount that in your case is 18% below AARP’s
standard rate. The discount is calculated by multiplying 3% by the number of years that you are
younger than 75. In your case, the discount equals 6 years x 3%, or 18%, and that discount will
be reduced by 3% each year until you turn 75.

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