Due to a poor understanding of health insurance jargon, more than half of Americans are not confident about their ability to choose the health plan that would best suit their needs – according to a new survey.
The Policy Genius survey also revealed that certain demographics have more trust in their ability to pick the right policy for their requirements. Males expressed more confidence in their abilities, at 58%, whilst 43% of millennials said they could pick the right policy for their needs.
The survey also compared the respondents’ confidence – the perception of their understanding of insurance terms – as well as comprehension – their actual understanding of insurance concepts.
Women were revealed to be more aware of the gap in their knowledge compared to men. Female respondents registered a 22% gap in self-rated confidence in their knowledge, compared with 29% for men. Millennials (aged 25-34 years old) posted the least understanding of health insurance.
Of all the insurance terms included in the survey, the least understood was ‘coinsurance’ with only 22% able to correctly define it. The term ‘co-pay’ was the best understood at 52%, followed by ‘deductible’ at 50% and ‘out-of-pocket maximum’ at 42%.
“Due to a decrease of insurers available on the (Affordable Care Act) marketplaces this year and an…increase in premiums, consumers will be hard pressed to find the best policy for their money,” Policy Genius co-founder and chief executive Jennifer Fitzgerald said.
“For consumers, finding a good health insurance plan starts with understanding the various trade-offs involved with different types of plans and benefits. Americans will need to weigh competing priorities, understand the apples-to-apples difference between plans, and understand how decisions may impact their total out-of-pocket costs,” she added.
The study surveyed 2,000 health consumers across the US in partnership with Radius Research.
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