There isn’t just one type of person that buys catastrophic health insurance – it is purchased by a wide range of people from self-employed people who are around college age right up to those people approaching retirement.

Most of the time people opt for catastrophic health insurance as it is a cheap alternative to more comprehensive health care. Some Blue Cross companies offer insurance starting at just $29 per month – a rate which is affordable for most.

This is also the pull for those people who are self-employed and need health cover. Without an employer to provide health care, catastrophic health insurance is the only solution.

Even those who are employed by a company are sometimes forced to take out catastrophic health insurance if their company doesn’t offer any health insurance. For this group of people it is often necessity that causes the decision rather than choice.

Indeed, taking out catastrophic health insurance is quite a gamble. Essentially the person who takes out the policy is betting that they will be able to afford the often very high deductibles and will not require health care that exceeds their life time maximum. With deductibles for catastrophic health insurance sometimes entering the thousands and life time maximum benefits being perhaps as low as 1 million dollars, it is a risk indeed.

It is so easy to imagine a huge number of situations where a medical expense wouldn’t reach the deductible offered by catastrophic health insurance. Simple things like an X-ray after a fall playing football or a brief trip to the ER after a slip. That is to say nothing of the numerous exclusions that exist on such catastrophic health insurance policies, such as pregnancies for the first year after birth.