Protecting Your Privacy When Looking for Health Insurance Quotes

The Internet has made comparison shopping for personal health insurance easier than it’s ever been. But in your haste to find an affordable health insurance policy have you ever stopped and wondered what happens to all that private information you’re filling in on all those application forms? You spill the beans about some pretty personal stuff, click a button and off it goes into the ether. Here are some tips to protect your privacy when looking for health insurance quotes online.

Only shop for personal health insurance quotes on secure sites. Look for seals from Internet privacy protection organizations like VeriSign. Just to be safe, click on the organization’s logo. If it’s legitimate, you’ll see a pop-up window with the health insurance website’s URL, an SSL Certificate Status date and other validating information. Once you go to a page that’s asking for personal information like your social security number, credit card or health history, check your browser bar to see that the URL starts with https://. If either of these items is missing, look for your personal health insurance quotes elsewhere.

Be sure you read the site’s privacy policy, too, to find out exactly what they do with your personal health insurance data. Any site that collects personal information should have a privacy policy that explains what they do with any data you supply. A good privacy policy will include the company’s legal business and/or site name, mailing address and other contact information. It should also spell out what information will be shared, under what circumstances and with whom.

You should also check out the A.M. Best website for the rating for any personal health insurance company you’re considering. A high rating from A.M. Best is the standard for quality in the insurance industry.

Understand your Health Information Privacy Rights, a federal law that protects your health information even when you’re looking for health insurance quotes. Most health care providers, certain government programs that pay for health care, most employer group health plans and all health insurance companies and HMOs are required to adhere to this law. Among the data that is specifically protected is any information about you held in a health insurer’s computer system. Depending on where you live, your state laws may provide additional protection.

Finally, if you use a computer that’s used by someone else, close the browser!

If you follow these precautions and know your privacy rights, you can shop for personal health insurance quotes online with confidence and save a lot of time in the process.