OT: ACM insurance

I looked at ACM a few years ago iirc, and decided that I couldn't use them for some reason. I can't remember why. The only way I've been able to get decent insurance as a consultant is through these employer of record services. I've only found two. One is called SoloW2 (nee Pace). IMO, they're crooks. The only other option is MBO Partners. (if you know of others, I'd definitely like to know!) We're using them now. They're legality nazis when it comes to taxes and the like. Basically, you have to incorporate, then you become their employee, then they bill your corporation for your services. This gives you access to their group health insurance. It's not cheap. I'm paying around $2000 a month for insurance now. This is for a PPO, maybe the HMO is cheaper. They want to run a minimum of $7500 a month out of your corporation to them. They take something like 3%, deduct everything, then send you a pay check. Alternatively, they can bill any clients you have as a consultant directly. But I really don't like this arrangement because you lose control over the client and any tax advantages you might get from being incorporated. Another option if you're incorporated is to form your own health insurance group. You need exactly two people in the group, so you as one employee, and a wife as another. One of you puts the kids on their insurance. If you do this, the insurance company is required to take you, even if you have preexisting conditions. They still may rate you higher though. And this might just be an illinois law. If you've just ended a salaried job with insurance, you have 63 days to sign up for cobra. Otherwise, anything and everything will be a preexisting condition. You can wait until the last minute and sign up to save a month or two of premiums. But remember that you may have to wait until the following first of the month with the new "employer". It might be cheaper to carry cobra for 18 months than to try to do something like I'm doing. brian On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 2:50 PM, David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu>wrote: