Don't Buy Medigap Plan G Before Watching This !

Medicare Supplement Plan G is the most popular Medicare supplement of all the standardized supplements available in the United States. In fact, the latest GenRE industry study of Medicare supplement plans shows that Medigap Plan G accounts for about 72 to 73 percent of all Medicare supplement plans purchased in 2023. That, by the way, is up from just 41 percent of all plans sold in 2018. So why is Medigap Plan G so popular? Probably because it offers the most insurance coverage of any Medicare supplement plan for anyone new to Medicare. It's the right plan for people who just want great health care and to whom the premium is not as important a factor as the convenience of everything just being paid for. But are there downsides to Plan G? What kind of traps can we as consumers fall into with Plan G? Those are questions that I'll answer in this video. If you're wondering if Medigap Plan G is for you or what you need to know if you're also considering a Plan N, then this video and its sister video on Plan N are for you. Hi, I'm Matthew Clausen with MedigapSeminars.org. My agency is a full-service independent broker helping people with their Medicare and retirement needs. We work with all the major insurance companies and represent your best interest in searching for the right Medicare plan to meet your needs and your budget. If you find this video helpful, please press the like button below and subscribe to my channel. In doing so, you help spread this information to others who will also find this video helpful. If you've seen my Medicare Explained videos, then you know that the most common reason someone chooses a Medicare supplement plan to improve their Medicare coverage is that you get to keep the two greatest benefits of original Medicare. You can see any doctor in the United States or U.S. territory that accepts Medicare. If there's a doctor halfway across the country that is best in the world at curing whatever ails you, you can see them. Medicare won't pay the airfare or the hotel, but it will cover the Medicare bills. In addition, no insurance company has a say in your health care. Medicare's intent is to cover everything medically necessary to diagnose or treat any injury, disease, or condition. Medicare leans on your doctor to make that determination. This means your health care decisions are between you and your doctor. So what does Plan G cover? Almost everything. With a Medigap Plan G, you have 100% inpatient coverage. You can be in the hospital as an inpatient for a year, and all of your inpatient care is 100% paid for. As an outpatient, your only obligation is the annual Part B deductible. The Part B deductible is what you pay of your Medicare bill before your Medicare Part B starts to pay any benefits. In 2024, that amount is $240. And as I filmed this video, the official 2025 Part B deductible has not yet been released, but the official estimate is at $257, still comfortably under $300 a year. In fact, the Part B deductible is not expected to increase to $300 a year until 2028, and then I'm going to have to make a new Plan G video. With a Medigap Plan G, after you pay the annual Medicare Part B deductible, you have 100% coverage for inpatient and outpatient Medicare bills. Keep in mind, all Medicare Supplement Plan benefits are standardized by law. The benefits do not change, ever. Plus, there is no difference in Plan G benefits from one insurance company to another. The only difference is the price that you pay today and what you will pay in the future. But therein lies the rub, as we used to say. Your choice of insurance company will have a greater impact on the price of your plan over your lifetime than which of the supplement plans that you choose. Medicare Supplement Plan prices will certainly increase over time, and not necessarily in a smooth or linear fashion. You may go five years or more with minimal price increases and then get a shock with a 15% price increase. No one has a crystal ball, but what we can do is avoid the companies that have a high probability of unusual price increases or worse. We avoid the obvious pitfalls. Here are pointers and thoughts. These are part of my rules when choosing a Medicare Supplement Insurance Company. Rule number one, avoid any insurance companies that has not been offering Medicare Supplement Plans for at least five years. And by this, I do not just mean some new company with a parent company that has been in life insurance or property and casualty insurance for 150 years. What I want to see is I want to see active management that has been working with Medicare Supplement Plans for at least five years. Why? Two reasons. First, a high percentage of new Medicare Supplement Companies don't make it past five years. I have witnessed a lot of supplement companies get out of the market and stop selling Medigap Plans over the years. In just this past year, I've seen United States Fire stop selling Medicare. Prosperity Insurance and Lumico Insurance closed their Medicare Supplement doors. Then the same thing happens with Advantage Plans, by the way. For example, Lasso closed down their Advantage Plan products at their fifth anniversary. When a company stops selling a new Medicare Supplement Plans, if you have a plan with them, then you're automatically put into a closed pool. And because then they will continue to service your plan, you have no guaranteed issue right to get a new supplement. In most states, you will need to qualify medically to change insurance companies. If you stay, you will experience higher than average price increases because no new healthy younger people can buy into your insurance pool. Of course, there's always an exception with any rule. Sometimes one company buys the entire management team from another company, and that's okay as long as there's no material changes to the management team. Now, before I go into the next reason, if this is the kind of Medicare content that you like, please subscribe to my channel so you don't miss out on future videos and the past videos I think you'll find easier to find. So thank you in advance. Another reason to avoid new companies is that many large insurance companies like to start a Medicare Supplement Division, build it up to be profitable, and then sell it for a profit at around the fourth or fifth year. Again, that leaves the policyholder holding the bag. And this happened with CSO insurance or CSI insurance. They swapped back and forth a couple of years ago. If you want more on this subject, please see my hidden risk videos. That's a two-part series originally put out with predictions in 2019 and then updated in 2023 showing those predictions coming to fruition and offering more predictions that are coming to fruition now. I have five rules that I go through in the part two video of that series that I will offer one more here as a teaser. It's rule number three out of those five years in the hidden risk video, and that is avoid companies with a rating lower than A-. Now there are generally two ratings most companies have. One is the AM Best rating, and that rating is specifically a measure of their claims paying abilities. And that's nice, but it's not the one that I'm most interested in because Medicare will make certain that your claims are paid. I'm most interested in the S&P rating, the standard and poors. Why? Because that is a company's bond rating. The lower the S&P rating, the higher the interest rate the market will charge for the company to issue bonds to borrow money. Companies with low S&P ratings, especially smaller companies that only work in a few states, are often a buyout target. It's sometimes better for the shareholder and the stock value to sell the company than to go into debt when financing is needed. When an insurance company is bought out by another company, you are again left in a closed pool. Again, if this is the kind of stuff that interests you, please see the two-part hidden risk videos. So what about Medigap Plan G versus Plan M? When you're shopping for a Medicare supplement, you will inevitably get to a point where you're deciding between a Medigap Plan G versus a Plan M. Sometimes a high deductible option is also on the table. In my next video, I will cover Plan N in detail. But for now, consider this. The people I find who are most comfortable with Plan G are people who have room in their budget for the Plan G and for the price increases expected over time. And the Plan G person just doesn't want to worry about medical bills. They just want the freedom to see the doctor of their choice, the freedom to get a second opinion or to go see a specialist as they wish, and not have nitpicky medical bills. For the Plan G person, the freedom and convenience of the Plan G is more valuable to their happiness and security than the premium payments. Budget concerns are secondary to the convenience and freedom. So if you like this video and you want to see more of my content, please subscribe, like the video, and shoot me a comment below. I'm Matthew Clausen with MedigapSeminars.org. Thank you for watching.