Illinois Insurance

Because it occupies a premier position in the American economy, Illinois attracts scores of insurance companies with services to sell. The Illinois insurance marketplace is highly competitive, with literally thousands of insurance companies vying with each other to provide a wide variety of insurance products for the people who live there and the companies who do business there. Illinois insurance consumers can easily find life, health, property and auto insurance at competitive rates from a host of reputable insurance companies.

Common Types of Illinois Insurance

Not only is the Illinois insurance marketplace active and thriving, the state itself is home to a number of well-known companies, such as the national Blue Cross Blue Shield organization, the umbrella group for the many state Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations that provide health insurance for over 100 million Americans. The Illinois insurance marketplace has a great many other companies offering health insurance at competitive rates.

Life insurance is another of the staples of the Illinois insurance marketplace. Remarkably, while an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that life insurance is a critical component of financial planning, close to half of all Americans don’t carry any form of life insurance. Thus, the market for life insurance in Illinois is wide open, and Illinois insurance companies are planning for a resurgence in the sale of life insurance as the economy recovers.

A much higher percentage of Americans carry auto insurance and homeowner’s insurance. In most cases, this coverage is mandated either by law or by mortgage lenders, but there’s a very active marketplace of providers competing in Illinois over premium rates and coverage levels.

Other Illinois Insurance Products

In addition to the main types of consumer-oriented insurance mentioned above, the Illinois insurance marketplace offers a wide selection of specialized products to meet the needs of those in special circumstances. For example, all employers need disability insurance and workers’ compensation insurance; there’s no shortage of Illinois insurance companies providing such insurance at competitive rates. In addition, there’s a special form of life insurance called a “buy-sell” policy sold to partnerships that gives the surviving partners the resources to buy out the share owned by a deceased partner. These policies and many more are readily available in the Illinois insurance marketplace.

Annuities are a little-understood insurance product that not only offer savings opportunities to purchasers, but are the prime vehicle for structured settlements in lawsuits and other long-term payment situations, such as lotteries. Of course, many pensions are also funded by annuities – monthly payments are made from annuities established at the point of retirement to provide a guaranteed lifetime income stream. Illinois insurance companies sell a wide variety of annuities both to individuals and organizations.

Health Insurance Reform

The enactment of health reform legislation by the US government will have a significant impact on the Illinois health insurance industry, and the state has already moved to accommodate the new law, with the creation of the Illinois Pre-Existing Condition Program (IPXP). Insurance companies nationwide will be forbidden from excluding pre-existing conditions from coverage beginning in 2014; the IPXP is a transitional program to cover people with pre-existing conditions and will phase out in 2014.

 

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