General Electric Healthcare

[Jac52]

HI- New to this forum and appreciate all the great insight. I'm thinking about retiring early from GE at age 52, but before I approach HR and my manager with questions on Health insurance options, I would like to ask if anyone out there can tell me what the options are for healthcare. I am not an Executive, but am salary, with over 20 years at GE Capital. The benefit handbook is very 'cagey' about this topic. At one time, long time ago in a galaxy far away, there was the option to buy health insurance once you leave the company (non-cobra), but I am not sure if this option still exists. Thanks!

[Silver]

Welcome Jac52.

Your question about health care insurance is a common one on this forum. My guess is that there are perhaps a couple of hundred posts on health insurance here. A good way to start is to do a search using the site search engine.

My advice is to talk to your HR department about what options you have for HI once you leave. If you have an option to continue coverage, find out the costs and then contact major medical insurance companies to get quotes to see if you can get anything better.

There are a couple websites that may help, like ehealthinsurance.com. It can give you some general info, but peoples' experience with actually getting insurance at the prices quoted seem to vary. Everything is underwritten, so if there are pre-existing conditions it can be expensive, even with riders that don't allow coverage for them.

There are many really good people here who can respond to specific questions when you're at that point, so welcome!

[dgoldenz]

Find out what retiree options they have and then compare the benefits/network/rates/pre-existing condition issues to getting your own individual policy.

[Blackwoodt]

Welcome Jac52, my company still offers retire health insurance after you reach the age of 55, and have in 10 years of service. Your HR department is your best bet, hopefully they still offer some coverage at least until Medicare (hopefully?) kicks in.

I was going to retire last year, but after finding out what insurance on my own would cost, I decided to stick it out until 2012 when I turn 55......

Good luck!

[Webzter]

If you can't contact HR anonymously, call from your boss's office

just kidding, but maybe a conference room would be a safer bet.

[nvestysly]

Jac52,

I'm sure you were hoping to find a GE retiree to chime in and tell you how the company handles retiree medical insurance but you'll have to continue waiting. I don't work for GE. But I will tell you how I handled the situation.

I used my best puppy-dog cutesy face and simply asked what the "rules" were regarding retiree status. At my previous employer the rule was age + years of service = 65. From there I continue asking (in a polite puppy-dog manner) what benefits come with retiree status. Before long, the conversation was going very well and I received an email with retiree medical premiums, etc. that explained most of what I needed. Whenever I asked for information I turned on the cute puppy-dog look and just asked straight out. I always prefaced it with something like "it will be years from now...." or "if and when I decide to leave....."

My current employer gives retiree status to anyone 50 years old and 5 or more years of service. This is a megacorp (much like GE) and their retiree benfits are posted on their internal web site. Maybe you just need to do some poking around. My megacorp site doesn't make it easy to find but the information is there - I had to perform various searches for retiree, medical premiums, benefits, open-enrollment, etc. to find all the information.

[SteveL]

I would go to HR and tell them I am thinking about retiring at 62, and am wondering about retiree health care. You are ten years away from that, and it won't affect anything.

[Katsmeow]

Do they have a retiree benefit handbook? In the megacorp DH worked for (not the one you work for) the employee handbook on benefits was vague on retiree healthcare but the retiree handbook was on the internal website and was very clear.

[Jac52]

Thanks for the responses. I think the 'puppy-dog' approach is the best approach as all literature is full of 'in certain cases' and 'you may be eligible' type language. Thanks!