During these last months, Covered California, insurance carriers and agents have been very busy assisting the last applicants with obtaining health insurance. Anthem and Blue Shield continue to have many problems with accounting, especially in billing accurate invoices and processing payments. Therefore, it is critical that all policyholders review the invoice they receive from the carriers and make sure that their monthly check is actually cashed. While agents are able to help, in most cases it is a faster process for you to contact the insurance carrier directly, as only the carrier can process the payments over the phone. The Open Enrollment period ended February 15th and the special enrollment period due to non-knowledge of tax penalty ended April 30th. If an insurance policy lapsed due to non-payment the applicant has to wait until November 1, 2015, to apply for coverage for 2016; will also have a tax penalty as high as 2 % of their annual income. However, the possibility of short term insurance can bridge you over the period to November.

Contact me if you have a special qualifying event or lapsed insurance policy .