Brat1

Thanks for the support guys, I'm not looking for sympathy, just the information I need to make the right decision. Obviously that comes across to some as being self important

Squirrel

Well I suppose any of us who start threads talking about our personal situations could be cited as self important

Personally if I cannot think of something nice to say I prefer to keep schtum.

Brat1

guitarmaan

I'd just like to add a question to this subject of health and insurance and property being at risk etc.

Is there a way round the situation, such as putting your house in somebody else's name? For example, if an insurance company came after your assets and you'd signed your home over to your parents. Are there laws in place to prevent that kind of self protection?

Just curious

Duncan Roberts

Without seeing actual $ amounts, that could be pretty normal. In general, employer sponsored policies have pretty decent coverage compared to what you can get if you go it on your own so they are usually more than you would be able to get an individual policy for. Then because it is a group policy they will take age, previous years claims and possibly certain conditions into consideration. If the predicted claims for the previous year were well above what was estimated and/or the average age of employees on the plan is high and/or there are a large number of people with high cost conditions, the premium will be higher than the same policy would be for a younger person with no health problems. When you add that into the % of the premium that the employer covers it is not unusual for premiums of individual policies to be considerably cheaper than a group one. However, you are buying more than just insurance with a group policy. You get guaranteed coverage, creditable coverage, COBRA eligibility, no pre-existing condition denials and a guarantee not to be dropped.

The first thing you need to do is find out if the policy you just had was a qualifying plan for creditable coverage and then get on your husbands plan before the end of the year, regardless of the cost. It may or may not be a qualifying plan, if that's the case then you will still have a period of time where pre-existing conditions are not covered.

On the house issue, I'm not positive on this but I don't think they can go directly after your house for medical bills. However, there are enough avenues for hospitals/debt collectors to go down for medical bills that they can garnish enough wages that paying a mortgage is impossible and the bank (or government if you let taxes go unpaid) take the house.

scrubbedexpat099

There is usually a limit on garnishments, round here seems like it is 25%.

Squirrel

I work in payroll (in the UK) and for some types of court order there is a 'protected pay' and you cannot deduct over the limit to leave less than that. Could it work like that maybe in some states rather than a pure percentage?

Giantaxe

In many (most?) states you can put a lien on a house that will prevent sale or refinance without the debt being paid.

Michael

The can prevent you from selling your home with a lien but many people get rid of the lien by filing for bankruptcy and keeping the home due to the homestead act in that state.

Although OJ Simpson didn't file for bankruptcy when he had the multimillion dollar judgment against him, he was still able to keep his very expensive home in Florida due to the homestead act.