Page 3 - Cover letter & Medicare evaluation for Mr. Carl Zambon

Medigap policies is that they do not have networks and you are covered when you go to any
provider who accepts Medicare (as some 99% of doctors do).

Another strength of Medigap policies is that Medicare, not the insurance company, makes the
coverage decisions. And if Medicare approves a service or treatment, the Medigap policy must
also cover it. Medicare is more lenient in approving certain treatments than are insurance
companies, and so Medigap policyholders may in some cases be covered for treatments that
people in Advantage plans may not be.

Medigap policies do not cover routine vision and dental care or hearing aids (Medicare doesn’t
cover these either). Neither do they cover prescription drugs, and so you will also need to enroll
in a Medicare prescription drug plan (Part D stand-alone plan), discussed below.

With the exceptions of Plan K and Plan L, Medigap policies do not have out-of-pocket limits,
although that is rarely an issue because Medicare’s underlying catastrophic protection is strong.
Some Medigap plans, including three of the four plans compared in your evaluation, include
some coverage for foreign travel medical emergencies.

To get current quotes, you will need to call the insurance companies that sell Medigap policies.
The companies’ phone numbers are listed in Appendix B5 from the Maryland Insurance
Administration, along with each company’s premiums. This list was last revised in July, and so
it’s likely some premiums have increased since then. Because Appendix B5 is a long document,
it’s being sent as a separate attachment.

In addition, premiums for Medigap Plans F, G, N, and L are in Appendices B1, B2 and B3. These
are from CSG Actuarial, a firm that provides quotes for insurance agents. These premiums are
current, but in some cases may not include the agents’ commissions (there is no way for me to
know which ones these are). These appendices show only the 15 or so companies with the
lowest premiums, but if you would like for me to send you the complete list, let me know.

One way in which CSG Actuarial’s premiums may be helpful is that they rank the companies by
their premiums. This makes it easier find the companies that have lower premiums. The
premiums in Appendix B5 from the Maryland Insurance Administration are not ranked, and so
you need to go company by company to find the lowest premiums.

Also, CSG Actuarial’s premiums show most companies’ premium increases for the last four
years. In some cases, CSG Actuarial also indicates companies’ financial strength ratings from AM
Best and Standard & Poor’s (S&P). The companies’ phone numbers are not shown in these
appendices, but as mentioned, are in Appendix B5.

The benefit designs of the ten Medigap plans are on pages 6-7 of the evaluation. Here are
summaries of the four plans compared in your evaluation:

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