The different insurance plan categories offer flexibility. So you can choose a health plan that‘s best for you and your family based on the amount of health care you‘re likely to need in the coming year. Below, you can see how costs change at each plan level.
* On average. The actual percentage you‘ll pay in total or per service will depend on the services you use during the year.
If you‘re healthy and don‘t go to the doctor often, you may want to choose a Bronze plan. With a Bronze plan, you may pay more out-of-pocket when you get care, but the advantage is that you save money on your monthly premium. Or you can choose one of the Gold or Platinum plans, which may cost more per month —but you‘ll pay a smaller share when you get covered health care services.
No one knows for sure what the next year holds. That‘s why all of these plans protect you from really high costs by paying 100% of your care above a certain amount —that‘s called your out-of-pocket maximum. You‘ll be able to see the details of each plan level, once you start shopping and comparing our health insurance plans.
Anthem health insurance and insurance through the Covered California marketplace
If you‘re eligible for financial help from the government —also called a subsidy —you can only get that subsidy if you buy a plan on the health care marketplace.
While you‘re shopping for a plan on our website, you‘ll see our subsidy calculator. It will help you figure out if you‘re eligible for a subsidy. If you qualify for a subsidy based on your income and family size we‘ll help you get to the marketplace so you can take advantage of your subsidy.
If you‘re not eligible for a subsidy, you can buy your plan directly from us. It‘s easy and convenient and most applications take less than fifteen minutes to complete.
To see if you're eligible for a subsidy, click the button below to visit the Covered California website. When you're ready to shop, you can find our plans on Covered California as well as on anthem.com.
Critical illness insurance in Canada has about two dozen standard covered conditions. Most policies cover ‘most’ conditions. However few policies cover all conditions. It’s important to compare both premiums and covered conditions, to ensure you’re getting the most complete coverage at the best premium.
Critical illness insurance in Canada has about two dozen standard covered conditions. Most policies cover ‘most’ conditions. However few policies cover all conditions. It’s important to compare both premiums and covered conditions, to ensure you’re getting the most complete coverage at the best premium.
It’s important to note that critical illness insurance does not simply ‘cover’ the conditions. It’s not as simple as you have a heart attack and the company pays the benefit, or you develop cancer and they pay the benefit. You must both develop the condition AND meet the stringent policy criteria. We recommend reading our full series of articles on critical illness insurance so that you’re aware of what you’re purchasing.
Here’s a list of the standard covered conditions:
Cancer
Life Threatening Cancer
Early Prostate Cancer (Partial)
Ductal Breast Cancer (Partial)
Superficial Malignant Melanoma (Partial)
Benign Brain Tumour
Stroke
Heart
Heart Attack
Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery
Heart Valve Replacement
Aortic Surgery
Angioplasty (Partial)
Multiple Sclerosis
Motor Neuron Disease
Alzheimer’s Disease
Parkinson’s Disease
Aplastic Anemia
Loss of Limbs
Loss of Speech
Blindness
Paralysis
Severe or Major Burns
Coma
Kidney Failure
Organ Transplant
Enrollment in Official Transplant Program
Occupational HIV
Loss of Independence
Bacterial Menengitis
Complications from Infectious Diseases
West Nile
Flesh Eating Disease
E. Coli
Lyme Disease
Notes: Not all companies cover all conditions. Shop and compare, you can do this through our online critical illness quotes.
As noted above, you must both develop the condition AND satisfy the contractual provisions surrounding the condition. Simply developing the condition is not going to result in payment of a benefit.
Most companies in Canada use standard definitions. However some companies deviate from these conditions. If you purchase a policy that has non-standard definitions, make sure you know how your policy varies from the standard, and why. That’s why it’s important that you deal with an expert in Critical Illness Insurance. Feel welcome to call Glenn toll free at 866.662.5433 or complete our Critical Illness Request from and we’ll call you back promptly.
If you’re considering purchasing critical illness insurance, in addition to all of the contractual and coverage decisions, there’s two basic product questions you need to answer.
How much critical illness insurance to buy and
What type of critical illness insurance to buy (i.e. the premium structure).
The answer to both of those questions are fairly mechanical in nature.
How much to buy?
For the total amount, it’s a matter of totaling up the expected costs you may have should you develop a covered condition. Examine each reason and estimate the amount that you’ll need for each of those items. Total these amounts and you have a solid estimate as to the amount of coverage. When in doubt, round higher.
Here’s an example:
Time off work, estimated 6 months: (1/2 of your annual salary)
Drug costs, 1 year: $50,000 (Forbes magazine quotes “Newfangled cancer drugs can cost $50,000 a year”)
Travel/food/hotel costs to be near treatment center: $2000 (or your best reasonable estimate)
Time off work for partner, estimated 3 months: (1/4 of partner’s annual salary)
Additional costs i.e. childcare, house cleaning: $5000 (or your best reasonable estimate)
Additionally if you’re considering payment for out of country treatment you may consider an additional $75,000 to $150,000. A quote from this article (discussing prostate cancer treatment at the Mayo clinic) says:
A 2007 study from the Journal of Clinical Oncology compared proton-beam therapy to a more common form of radiation therapy on prostate-cancer patients. For a 70-year-old man, the proton-therapy treatment cost $63,511.
For a total estimate of $100,000-$250,000 (as the Mayo clinic number is merely an estimate for one type of cancer).
In the end, these numbers are estimates and will vary wildly with your predictions, assumptions, and desired coverage level. However amounts of $25,000 to $250,000 would be common for critical illness coverage. For young families who are properly covered with life insurance and disability insurance, you may consider amounts in the range of $25,000 to $50,000 as a rough estimate for an emergency fund.
What type of critical illness insurance to buy?
Critical illness insurance premiums are structured similiar to life insurance premiums. The different types of premiums structures are very similiar to term life insurance and term to 100 life insurance. Critical illness 10 year term has premiums that are level for 10 years. After 10 years the premiums increase and are level for another 10 year period. Eventually the policy will expire, typically at age 75. Most policies however have an option up to age 65 to exchange or convert your term policy to a permanent policy without taking a new medical exam. The common types of critical illness term policies are 10 year term, 20 year term, term to age 65 (premiums level to age 65) and term to age 75 (premiums level to age 75).
The second premiums structure is term to 100. This type of critical illness policy is level for life. Premiums for this type of policy are initially higher than a comparable term policy, however the premiums are level for life. There’s no expiry age (the policy continues as long as you pay the premiums, no matter your age) and no conversion option (as the policy is already a lifetime policy).
Which one should you choose? Term or Term to 100? The answer lies in how long you expect to need the policy. If you’re intending to keep the policy only for 10 or 20 years, a term policy will be much less expensive. If your intention is to keep the policy forever, than while a Term to 100 policy is initially more expensive, it should still be your choice. The Term to 100 product ensures that your premiums remain affordable later in life.
How much life insurance do you need? $50,000? 5 million? To answer this question, we need to look at ‘why’ you’re considering buying life insurance.
Why? Standard of Living For many, the answer to ‘why’ is that we want our financial dependents – our family – to maintain their standard of living should we die. We don’t want anyone getting rich, but we don’t want anyone going broke either. We want your family to simply maintain their standard of living should you die. We want them to live in the same home, drive the same car, eat the same brand of groceries. That standard of living – the mortgage, the bills, the groceries, the car payment – has a cost. That cost is currently paid through your paycheque, your income.
You are Your Paycheque This is a key component to understanding how much life insurance we need. We currently maintain our standard of living using our paycheque. If we die, from a financial perspective (not an emotional perspective – that’s a different subject) we lose our paycheque. In fact, for most of us, our largest financial asset we have is our income over the years. And it’s that asset that we lose if we die. We don’t lose our mortgage, or our bills, or our savings for children’s education. We lose our paycheque for a period of years. Insurance is designed to replace a financial loss, and this approach focuses on the financial loss when we die – our paycheque. If we use life insurance to provide a replacement paycheque should we die, then our dependents can continue to maintain their existing standard of living using this replacement paycheque. We’ve then done the job we set out to do. The life insurance calculator below uses this premise to answer the questions ‘how much life insurance do I need’.
Life Insurance Calculator The following calculator calculates how much lump sum insurance you would need to provide a replacement income over a period of time. You can think of the capital as being the life insurance proceeds put into a savings account, and then your replacement income is withdrawn and placed into a chequing account each year. The money in the chequing account is what your dependents then live on for the year – so nobody gets rich but they maintain their standard of living. At the end of the time period, the money is completely gone – the life insurance proceeds have gone to 0 and nobody got rich, they merely maintained their standard of living. The following points may assist:
Percentage of Income: many of us will assume that if we die, our dependents don’t need 100% of our paycheque in order to maintain their standard of living. A common rule of thumb is to assume 80% of your income is sufficient for 1 income households and 60% is sufficient for 2 income households.
Number of years to replace income: This is how long we would assume we need to replace the income for. I recommend you try different values for this input in order to get a range of values. On the top end you would use the number of years until you expect to retire (to completely replace your income should you die tomorrow). On the lower end, you may use the number of years you expect it will take your children to become financially self sufficient. If you are 40 years old and you’re youngest child is 5, you might try values of 25 years (until you would be 65) and 15 years (assuming that your 5 year old will be financailly independent at age 20).
Would your beneficiaries use this tactic with the insurance proceeds should you die? Probably not. At that time they would determine how best to use the insurance proceeds. The calculator is designed to show us a reasonable range of insurance to make sure we don’t have too much or too little. It doesn’t address how to use the insurance proceeds, which would normally be determined after the fact.
The use of future assumptions in these types of calculations means there is no perfect answer to how much life insurance you need. To counter this, you should try different inputs for the calculator in order to get a range of values that you should consider. Within that range you can then apply other personal considerations as to whether you prefer to be on the top or bottom end of that range.
This calculator works best for income earners with financial dependents. If your needs are different this calculator may not apply. Please feel welcome to contact us to speak to a broker who can assist you with your specific needs.
Find the numbers to be high? Many of us should have more coverage than we expect. It’s not that we need such a large initial amount – it’s that we need an income over such a long period of time. Producing a replacement paycheque over 10,20, or 30 years can take more of a lump sum than most people expect.
Just because you’re no longer in school doesn’t mean you’ve got it all figured out.
You’ve still got plenty of important skills left to master — but now you’re on your own.
To help you navigate this confusing time, we reviewed several Quora threads on helpfulskills and ways to spend time in your 20s and 30s and highlighted the most useful insights.
Here are the life skills every young professional should master:
1. How to just be honest
When you’re late to an appointment, it’s tempting to pin the blame on gridlock or train delays.
Instead, says Quora user Michael Hoffman, “just apologize. You don’t have to give details. ‘I planned poorly’ is a hundred times better than risking your integrity by inanely blaming traffic.”
2. How to receive criticism
No one likes to be told they’re wrong or even that they could be doing something more effectively. As Abhinav Gupta writes, it’s easy to resent the person critiquing you, or completely ignore them.
Nonetheless, Gupta says, “in order to succeed in life you should always accept criticism and always respond positively to it and never think ill of people who point out your mistakes.”
3. How to start an interesting conversation
“Conversation-making is probably the most underrated skill,” says Deepak Mehta, who admits that he’s a shy person who’s always found it difficult.
But experience has taught him that if you dare to strike up a discussion with the person next to you, you might very well end up with a new friend, a business connection, or some novel insights on an old topic.
4. How to ask for something you want
“The ability to ask is the easiest, most underutilized skill to catapult your career,”writes an anonymous user.
But if you don’t muster up the courage to request a raise, a promotion, or a bigger sales deal, you have no chance of getting it.
If the thought of requesting what you want makes you anxious, the user suggests practicing in non-work-related contexts. For example, you could ask a vendor at a farmer’s market for a lower price on your vegetables.
“The more you put yourself in uncomfortable situations,” the user writes, “the more likely you’ll decide they’re not that uncomfortable after all.”
5. How to keep your promises
Maybe you told a friend you’d show up to his birthday party, or maybe you agreed to finish an extra assignment for your boss. Whatever the situation, you should make good on your word.
“Break [your promise] and people lose trust and faith in you, which, over time, is very hard to mend,” Hoffman says.
6. How to communicate effectively
No matter your career field, you can always improve the way you speak and write.
“Think about ways to challenge yourself and tweak how you write an email or behave in a meeting,” the anonymous user suggests.
Here’s an example: “During your next team meeting, resist talking about your idea or opinion right off the bat. Instead, count to five, and if you still feel like you have something relevant to contribute, speak up. On the flip side, if you’re shy, challenge yourself to say what you’re thinking, instead of remaining silent.”
7. How to be resilient
The rest of your life is bound to include setbacks, sadness, and frustration (in addition to joy and excitement!). Carolyn Cho says you should use your early adulthood to figure out how to recover from mishaps:
Your twenties [are] a time when most are relatively free of the responsibilities that will increase into your thirties and forties. This is a great time to experiment, fail, and bounce back. Learn how to ride out failure and persevere.
Life is full of challenges. The twenties are a great time to toughen up and start teaching yourself how to be emotionally and mentally resilient enough to weather both the joys and hardships to come.
8. How to demonstrate good table manners
“A lot of interviews take place over meals,” writes Drew Pavilonis.
“Chewing loudly, or eating with your mouth open, licking fingers and utensils (yes, I’ve seen it), elbows on the table, just shows a lack of manners and social skills.”
9. How to manage your anger
Syed Muswair Abbas Rizvi argues that you can channel your rage and frustration in positive directions instead of lashing out at the people around you. (For example,research suggests that anger can stimulate creativity, at least temporarily.)
“Your anger can empower you to do the unthinkable and unimaginable things, if you just learn the art to master and manage your anger.”
10. How to live within your means
Cho advises young adults to think carefully about all their expenditures:
“Luxuries are a wonderful thing only if you can truly afford them. Don’t be a slave to funding a lifestyle that will not last. Learn to live modestly and save up, and then you will have earned the right to purchase yourself some treats, in moderation.”
This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.
California Flash Flooding Triggers Mudslides, Stranding Motorists
A massive mudslide pushed up to five feet of mud across California's Internstate 5 on Thursday trapping cars and forcing crews to close the highway in both directions for nearly 40 miles.
Caltrans officials worked overnight to remove the accumulated mud from the Grapevine area, but have yet to set timetable for the central highway to reopen as dozens of abandoned cars must first be cleared from the roadway.
Although much of California has been experiencing a severe drought this year, heavy rain fell in parts of the state Thursday afternoon, thanks to a slow-moving storm system.
Flooding also swamped roads in the San Gabriels of north L.A. County and parts of the Antelope Valley.
Scary scenes also came out of the Lake Hughes area along and near Lake Hughes Road, as well as nearby Elizabeth Lake.
Numerous vehicles in the area were just about completely submerged in mud. Elizabeth Lake and Lake Hughes are about 20 miles east of the section of I-5 that was shut down due to mudslides.
About 25 people were reportedly sheltering in place at Hughes-Elizabeth Lake Elementary School Thursday night, according to an L.A. County official.
A mesonet station southwest of Lancaster, California, tallied 2.99 inches of rain in just 30 minutes Thursday afternoon. Vehicles were stuck in floodwater and mud west of Lancaster. Quarter to golf-ball size hail pounded Leona Valley and Palmdale and there were two reports of funnel clouds near Lake Hughes and West Palmdale.
