Guaranteed issue rights for Medicare Supplement
The windows in which a Supplement carrier must sell to you regardless of health — and what happens outside them.
By Meg Quillen, Cedar Landing Benefits
A Medicare Supplement is the one part of Medicare where your health history can be used against you. Outside certain windows, carriers in most states may ask medical questions and decline the application.
Knowing which windows exist, and how long they last, is the difference between a free choice and an expensive one.
The open enrolment window
Your Medigap open enrolment period lasts six months from the month your Part B starts and you are 65 or over. Inside it, any carrier must sell you any Supplement they offer, at their standard rate, whatever your health.
It happens once. There is no annual repeat, which is why the choice made at 65 carries further than most people realise.
Guaranteed issue situations
Certain events create a guaranteed-issue right outside that window: your plan leaves the area, your employer coverage ends, your Advantage plan stops serving your county, or you are within the first twelve months of trying Advantage for the first time and wish to return.
Each right has its own timetable, usually around sixty-three days, and each requires evidence. Keep the letter that announced the change — it is the document the carrier will want.
Outside a window
Outside those windows you can still apply, and plenty of healthy applicants are accepted. The application asks about your health, the carrier decides, and a decline is a real possibility with a significant history.
That asymmetry is why we spend so long on the first decision. It is far easier to start where you want to end than to move later.
An estimate for planning, not a quote. Medicare and the Marketplace set your real figures.
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