Tag: e-cigarettes

New York Governor Cuomo directs insurers to cover vaping cessation costs

Nordstrom
Vaping cessation - Person using E-cigarette - vaping

The state is making another move to overcome its portion of the country’s e-cigarette use problems. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the N.Y. Department of Financial Services is directing insurance companies in the state to cover vaping cessation costs. The governor has ordered the department to direct insurers to pay related treatment expenses. As a result of this order, insurance companies will need to pay the costs of vaping cessation treatments without requiring policyholders to contribute via deductible, co-pay or co-insurance. Insurers will be required to offer the same…

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E-cigs are a complicated issue in terms of health insurance

S.Vagus
e-cigarette vapor health insurance

Federal regulators are considering the role that e-cigs play in health insurance coverage Regulators are discussing whether or not health insurance companies that participate in state insurance exchanges can levy a tobacco surcharge on policyholders that use e-cigarettes. This is the latest development in the ongoing debate over the health problems that could be linked to these electronic devices. Currently, the overriding consensus among federal regulators is that e-cigarettes are just as dangerous as normal cigarettes despite the fact that they have no tobacco content. E-cigarettes are not well understood, from…

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E-cigarettes are causing insurance confusion

Julie Campbell
e-cigarettes or vapor

Now that the FDA plans to regulate the devices like their tobacco alternatives, insurers are facing complications. The Affordable Care Act has allowed health insurance companies to charge premiums that are up to 50 percent higher to smokers and other tobacco users than they would to nonsmokers, but the introduction of e-cigarettes into the marketplace have started to make rates calculations a little bit less clear for those insurers. These battery operated devices have some of the properties of their tobacco based counterparts, but not others. Therefore, when it comes…

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Life insurance companies do not prefer e-cigarettes

Julie Campbell
electronic e-cigarette life insurance

The tobacco free options may seem to be healthier but insurers are not seeing them that way. While electronic cigarettes may be designed to mirror the smoking experience while removing the carbon monoxide, tar, and other chemicals and toxins that make tobacco one of the top cancer causers, life insurance companies continue to consider their users in the same way that they would a smoker of a traditional cigarette. Many smokers have been trying to use e-cigarettes to break their nicotine addictions. Quitting smoking is not an easy feat. Life…

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