Let’s say you are a 23 year old female who wants to get health insurance.  At age 20 you played soccer for your university and you busted your knee. A health insurance company will take special notice of that.  Your knee is considered a pre-existing condition.  And that’s not good news for you.

A waiver or rider is an insurance company’s method of excluding certain pre-existing conditions from health coverage.

So, what are you going to do?

Here are options:

1. Accept a “waiver’ or “rider” (same idea) for the knee.  You will be insured for everything else except your knee.

2. Get “capped coverage.”  In this situation the company does not cover the pre-existing condition for the first 24 months, and then limits coverage for the condition to $5,000 a year for the next ten years. This is better than no coverage at all for your knee.

3. Which brings us to the best option, in my opinion.  Accept a temporary rider. Often a company will remove a rider after 24 months if you have had no recurring problems with your knee.  Overall, a rider is preferable to capped coverage if there is a possibility the rider can be lifted at a later date.

Good Neighbor Insurance – covering International Health and Travel Insurance