When you decide to go shopping at the mall, it might be so that you can take advantage of the sales. Maybe you want to go to the mall to find the perfect outfit for a job interview, or just to get some lunch. What about going to the mall to buy health insurance? This could be a reality very soon.
The health insurance exchanges that are part of the Affordable Care Act are supposed to become available in 2014. The idea is that Americans could use those exchanges to quickly and easily compare health insurance plans.
It would give people a clear idea about exactly what a particular plan covers, and what it would cost. This information can be used in order to find the best deal, and to help people find a quality health insurance plan that they can afford.
Private insurance companies aren’t necessarily waiting until 2014 to create something that is very similar to the exchanges. In August of 2011, there was talk about putting these private insurance exchanges into grocery stores and pharmacies, in the form of a kiosk.
Walgreens was considering selling health insurance products to its customers. I think the idea here was that Walgreens was going to sell different health insurance products, at different prices and coverage levels.
Customers would have been able to buy health insurance from a private insurance company through Walgreens. I just checked the Walgreens website and there is no information to be found about being able to purchase a health insurance policy from this pharmacy. I do not know if this means that Walgreens is not ready to sell insurance yet, or, if it means that Walgreens won’t be selling health insurance at all.
Now, there is a new idea about how to get information about health insurance plans to customers. Private insurers are starting to open up retail stores in strip malls. This makes a certain amount of sense. Putting insurers in malls, next to the retail stores, would be a good way to increase customer traffic. It also would fill in at least a few of the empty stores that went out of business during the recession, and left plenty of empty spaces in malls.
Two insurers who have started doing this are Highmark in Pennsylvania and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. A customer who was doing some shopping at the mall could pop into an insures retail location, and get information about the different types of health insurance policies that they sell.
Current customers could go in to check on an existing insurance claim. Insurers could offer classes that would improve a customer’s health, such as a yoga class or a class about healthy cooking. Someday soon, it might be typical for a person to go to the mall, check out a sale, get some lunch, and then go buy some health insurance.
Image by Erika Smith on Flickr