Traveler Health Insurance

[kc87t, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

I'm currently on my first assignment in Connecticut so I'm still in the process of figuring out all the details. In regards to health insurance... do you guys take the company provided insurance? Or does it make more sense to get private health insurance if you use several different companies to travel with? I'm currently using the company provided insurance and paying the entire premium which is a huge chunk of change...but with more research I see there are companies that pay the premium. Just wanted some opinions on what you guys have found to be easiest and most cost effective. Thanks.

[NedRN]

Travel companies get a fixed hourly rate for your services, out of which all compensation gets paid. So if an agency pays for more of your healthcare insurance, they are paying you less somewhere else. Zero sum game.

There is a small advantage in taking the agency insurance in that it is pretax (or perhaps calling it tax free makes more sense). When you buy private insurance, you are paying for it with money that has already been subjected to income taxes. But that is balanced against private insurance usually costing less, at least if you have minimal pre-existing conditions. You also have to look at agency insurance closely, it is usually not as good as staff insurance, and is often really bad. If you find agency insurance that is both good and fairly priced, you may just want to keep it via your COBRA rights.