The company you have been working at for the last 10 years suddenly closed down. They were fair to you with severance pay, etc. but now you find yourself without the group health insurance plan that they sponsored and which formed part of your package. You have to decide what to do to replace this. Your next employer may not offer this to you.

One of your options for Pennsylvania health insurance is for you to purchase a conversion plan. This simply means that you purchase an individual health insurance policy from the same company that provided the group health insurance to your employer and his employees. If you received employer-sponsored group health insurance for no less than three months, you are eligible for conversion health coverage.

When you become unemployed, you must be notified of your health insurance rights under conversion health insurance plans. Now you have 31 days to apply for conversion coverage.

If you were not notified of your health insurance rights under conversion health insurance plans, you should contact your employer, the health insurance company from which your employer purchased the employer-sponsored group health insurance plan, or the Insurance Department of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If you don’t do this, you may lose your rights to convert your insurance policy.

Once you have purchased the conversion health insurance plan in Pennsylvania, you have to pay the premiums that your employer may have once paid for you under your employer-sponsored group health insurance plan. But the major advantage to taking the conversion plan is that you cannot be denied insurance cover due to any medical conditions. This could be vitally important if you are not so young or if you have had a change in your health conditions.

The conversion insurance covers not only you, but anyone else who was previously covered under your employer-sponsored group health insurance plan. This includes your spouse - even if the two if you are divorced - and your children. As long as the person is your dependent, and was previously covered by your health insurance policy, he or she can also be covered under your conversion coverage plan.

If you are already receiving, or are eligible to receive, health insurance offering similar coverage from another group health insurance plan or health care programs such as Medicare, you are not eligible for conversion health coverage. In most cases, you must also use up the Federal COBRA health care coverage if you qualify for this.