Ironically enough, as Congress pushes to pass legislation that could put health insurance companies out of business, Unicare has decided to pull out of both the Texas and Illinois marketplace. In doing so, Unicare will be leaving almost 200,000 Illinoisans, and 400,000 Texans in need of new insurance. However, according to the insurance department, individuals will be able to transfer over to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of each state which is operated by Health Care Service Corp.

WellPoint Inc., Unicare’s parent company, explained that they simply did not have the scale to compete with companies such as United Health Care and Blue Cross Blue Shield. To better illustrate this point, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois has roughly 7 million members.

So what options are available to Unicare members? WellPoint Inc. and Health Care Service Corp. have arranged a deal to offer Unicare members the ability to obtain replacement coverage through Blue Cross Blue Shield of each state. Although there is no guarantee that rates will be the same, there is a guarantee that individuals transferring over will not be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. Furthermore, Unicare members will have to make this decision by December 31st of this year.

Although Unicare asserts that is does not plan on closing up shop in any other states, as of last week they are no longer accepting new applicants. This being said, you may want to invest some time into looking for an alternative option for your family’s health insurance in order to establish a backup plan in the event they shutdown completely. To obtain health insurance quotes from the other top rated insurance carriers in your area contact a free licensed Advisor at MyInsuranceExpert.com

Tags: unicare

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 9:22 am and is filed under Health Insurance, Health Insurance Plans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.