Lying On A Health Insurance Application

People lie on health insurance applications all the time.

Many of these people tell themselves that insurance companies are always ripping people off so they feel justified in trying to hide their true health status. Actually, most know they should have gotten insured before the health problems began and they just use this as an excuse to be dishonest. Besides, they are desperate to get help with their medical bills.

Insurance companies know this and try to protect themselves in several ways.

First is medical underwriting, the process of assessing the potential risk of an applicant's future health care expenses based on their history as well as current status. By accessing medical records and claims history, the company will often find information that was not provided on the application.

If they find information to turn you down, you would then have a new problem because the next application you do will ask if you've been turned down before. Answering this question falsely also can double your chances of getting caught.

While you may never have heard of anyone going to jail it, insurance industry lobbyists were influential enough to get legislators to make it a felony to lie on an insurance application.

Whether or not you go to jail, the application you sign becomes part of your contract and it will certainly contain wording that allows the company to deny benefits or cancel the coverage if they can find that you either gave misstatements or omitted important details.

This could be the worst part if you go ahead with expensive health services only to find later that you'll be stuck with huge bills and no coverage because your deception was a breech of the contract.

Finally, failing to be honest could deprive you of an opportunity to get the best advice. An experienced agent who handles more than one health insurance company could tell you which company will give you the best coverage for your situation. Not only would this save you time, it would also remove any reason to worry about getting caught.