When Do I Receive My Medical ID Cards?

So you have applied for new group health insurance for your company, or you are an employee at a company that is moving to a new health insurance carrier, one thing that you want to know is when do I receive my medical ID cards?

After your company has submitted the application to the insurance company, your application goes into underwriting. Underwriting is the process of reviewing your company’s application and can take a couple of days or weeks depending on the complexity of your new insurance and the amount of submissions that the insurance carrier has received.

Generally speaking, after your group’s insurance is approved, the employees’ information is loaded into the insurance carrier’s computer system in about 3-4 business days. After the members and their dependents are setup in the health insurance carrier’s system, the medical ID cards are shipped to the employees’ home. You can expect to receive the medical ID cards within 5-10 business days after the employees’ information is setup.

Almost all health insurance carriers send the medical ID cards to the employees’ home, but there are exceptions where the insurance carrier will send the medical ID cards to the broker’s office or directly to the employer. If the medical ID cards are not sent directly to the employees’ home, then your broker will notify you of this.

Time to receive the medical ID cards can vary, but the time frame above is generally what happens based on our experience at Technology Insurance Associates.

If you have not received your medical ID cards in a timely manner, it is best to contact your broker and let him or her know so the health insurance carrier can be contacted to check to see where the medical ID cards are.