This post is exactly like the Taco Salad post. Exactly like it.
What I mean is, I’ve had dozens of requests that I share this info and it’s only taken about six years for me to get around to it. (Just like it took me six years to share the taco salad recipe. You see how that makes the posts exactly the same?) I have nothing to say for myself about this issue. Perhaps there’s a home remedy for this??
Health Insurance for our Self-Employed Family
Our family has qualified as “self-employed” for almost all of our 25 years. Even when my husband worked as an employed minister for churches, we carried our own insurance. So trust me when I say we’ve shopped around for the best type of health insurance to pay for out of our own pocket. We’ve experienced all the good, bad, and ugly. We’ve nearly gone broke in the pastfrom paying monthly premiums, and we haven’t had a co-pay option since 1998.
Lest you think I’m complaining,let me tell you where we’ve landed after all these years of trying to figure out the best way to carry health insurance for our family:
We are so super happy that we get to make the decision for ourselves!
Taking care of our own health insurance means we aren’t stuck with what we don’t need or want, paying money we don’t want to pay.We hear from too many people about how much money comes out of their paycheck to go toward health insurance. We hear many a complaint about poor coverage. Instead of dealing with these frustrations, we get to choose where we want to put our money! We’re thankful for this.
We’ve always chosen a high deductible plan so that we pay less per month and instead put our money toward real food and natural/homeopathic/chiropractic care. But with regular insurance companies, even with a high deductible, our monthly premium paymentkept going up and up and up. It was horrible, actually.
The worst of it for us was that we really only kept this insurance for major illnesses or catastrophes. As I’ve shared before, our family doesn’t head to the doctor for every sniffle, and in fact, the only time we’ve taken any of us to a regular doctor in the past 11 years is for stitches.
So it was becoming more and more painful to pay hundreds of dollars each month for what felt like nothing. (Not that we wanted anything major to happen, of course. “Let’s get majorly sick so we can get our money’s worth out of our insurance!” said no one ever.)
We looked into alternative options for health insurance
I’d heard some of my friends talk about Christian Healthcare Ministries, so at the point our regular insurance premium doubled (again!) I decided to see if their price might be better.
Oh my stars and dollar signs.
Their price was shockingly lower. You guys – our family of six pays $235/month for insurance. The price does NOT go up year after year. I still can’t even believe how good this is. Annnnnd, instead of our money going to who knows where, our monthly payment goes to another Christian family to help them pay their medical bills. It almost makes me want to pay a higher premium. (Except not.)
Now granted, we pay such a low monthly fee because we chose a $5,000 deductible (which is the same deductiblewe had on the super expensive insurance). We chose the “bronze” level of coverage, which doesn’t cover anything beyond the big stuff because that’s what works best for our needs (since we rarely, if ever, go to a regular doctor).
We’ve saved thousands through the years – putting the money we would have been paying for insurance into savingsso we have deductible money if we need it. And here’s the best part:
Instead of paying huge money every month for insurance that covered nothing but catastrophes, we can put money into our natural doctors, chiropractors, and home remedies instead. All that, and we still save money.
I’m not an affiliate for Christian Healthcare Ministries; I don’t get a kick-back for telling you about them. (Actually, I do see that they give incentives for telling your friends. I haven’t yet learned how that works. Hmmm….)I’m just answering people’s questions I get so often about what we do for insurance since we’re self-employed. Just like knowing about home remedies, I believe people should know they have options for health insurance too!
Because they aren’t technically an “insurance company” (though they still meet the government requirements to be considered such) things work a little differently than you might be used to with Blue Cross or whatnot. As a matter of fact, Christian Healthcare Ministries claims, “We are not health insurance. We are a ministry.” I love this! While their system works differently, it’s not complicated and every need and issue we’ve had has been worked out beautifully; every phone call pleasant.
So there you go. Christian Healthcare Ministries. That’s how we handle our health insurance as self-employed family. I can’t believe it took me so many years to finally write this post.
I’d love to hear what you do for health insurance. Do you have it through your employer? Carry your own? Have you tried a Christian ministry option like this one?
UPDATE
Many have looked into Christian Healthcare Ministries since I posted this. It seems that if you give them our insurance number, our familywill get a referral bonus which would coverthe cost one month of fees for us. What a wonderful perk! If you feel this is a good option for you, our referral number is 145625. Thanks! :)
