Being a self-employed freelancer is a wonderful thing in many ways.  It allows you a flexible schedule, you can generally do jobs that you like and you get to have almost complete control over your work environment.  But these benefits come with a cost; you lose out on certain things by not being the employee of a small business or larger company.  One of these things is health insurance.  Health insurance is almost a given in places of full-time employment, and you should consider it a given when working for yourself, even though you are going to have to do the footwork to make it happen.

Many freelancers fail to secure health insurance for themselves because they think that it is too difficult to obtain, too expensive to afford or too bothersome to deal with at the current time.  This is all fine and dandy during times of good health.  But in the awful case that you get sick as a freelancer and have a break in income because you are too sick to work, the last thing that you need to add to the problem is the fact that you’re racking up medical bills because you didn’t obtain health insurance.  It’s better to be prepared for problems in advance than to have to deal with their effects after the fact.  Luckily, figuring out health insurance really isn’t that difficult.

If you know which health insurance company you would like to work with (say because you had them in the past when you were employed by a company and you liked their service) then you can contact them directly.  Explain to them that you are a freelance employee who is self-employed and that you want to know what plans are offered to you for quality health insurance.  It is no longer rare for people to work from home so most health insurance companies are already prepared for your situation and will be able to explain the details to you.

If you don’t know which health insurance company to go with, do some research online to find the right carrier.  There are certain things that you should take into consideration to help narrow down your search.  First of all, look at your family situation.  If you have dependents or a spouse who will need to be covered on your insurance as well, then make a note of this so you can discuss the options with the health insurance providers you are considering.  Then take a look at some of the basics of health insurance to figure out what kind of plan might be right for you.   Ask yourself what kind of a monthly payment you can afford, if you need to be covered for prescriptions, dental, vision and / or life insurance in addition to medical office visits, what type of office co-pay and deductible makes sense for your income and whether you are going to want an HMO or PPO plan.  Many online sites allow you to do searches and sort the results by these different types of criteria so knowing what you want should help you to find the right plan.

Once you have health insurance, make sure that you keep records of the payments that you make to cover yourself as a freelance employee.  This is because health insurance is one of the expenses that you may be able to deduct on your taxes when it comes time to file them.  So, if you think that you don’t have the money for health insurance, consider the fact that you’ll be essentially getting that money back.  Your health is worth the time and energy it takes to make sure that you get covered as a freelance professional.Here are More Articles About Health Insurance for the Self Employed.

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