Blue Cross & Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC), announced they would be issuing refunds to individual policyholders around the end of 2010.
This one-time refund will return approximately $155 Million to more than 215,000 individual BCBSNC customers as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
Individual Policy Holders as of March 23, 2010 will be eligible for the refund. The refunds will be approximately 1.5 months worth of the individuals monthly premium.
Why Is This Happening?
Under the rating & grandfathering rules in the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act, a one-time circumstance was created that enabled these refunds.
Where Is The Money Coming From?
The funds used for the refund come from “active life reserves”. These are portions of your premium that are set aside in the early years of a policy to pay for future claims and to keep rates stable as customers’ medical expenses rise during the later years of their policies. However, under the new health care reform law, policies purchased or substantially modified after March 23rd,2010 will end in 2014. Thus, the need for the aforementioned reserves held for those products is less.
