Even Affluent Boomers May Need Help Finding Major Medical
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Most affluent baby boomers have health insurance. But advisors say those helping those boomer clients who need coverage cope is a great way to win their loyalty.
No one knows just how many affluent boomers have trouble getting health coverage. The plight of the wealthy uninsured is not a subject that gets much attention from federal agencies or health finance think tanks.
But census figures show that 7.9 million U.S. residents between the ages of 45 and 64 lacked health coverage for all of 1998, and that 7% of residents in households with annual incomes over $75,000 lacked coverage. If 7% of the 8 million residents in the 45-64 age group lacked coverage, then 560,000 affluent Americans in the 45-64 age group may have had serious coverage problems.
Many of those affluent Americans were boomers, and more and more boomers are passing the age of 45.
Advisors in the field report seeing clear evidence that buying health insurance can be a headache even for boomers with high incomes and substantial assets.
Mark Hinkle is COO at Employers Select Plan, Cleveland, Ohio, a firm that specializes in selling individual and group health insurance as well as nonhealth employee benefits. He frequently runs into clients with high incomes and high net worths who have trouble finding good coverage.
Helping those clients find coverage “demonstrates the value of what an insurance agent does,” Hinkle says.
In Arizona, Collett-Ragland Financial P.L.C., Phoenix, is a firm that handles general financial planning. But even at Collet-Ragland, a firm that has no special interest in health insurance, cases of clients scrambling to find health insurance are “common enough,” says George Collett, a principal at the firm. “Its an issue that, more and more, Im involved with.”