Small group insurers are moving away from restricting coverage based on occupation because regulations implementing the Health Insurance Availability Act prohibited this practice. The specific types of occupations medium group insurers will decline are listed in the chart on page 11. Insurers avoid covering those in hazardous industries, such as security guards, explosives handlers, loggers, or miners. However, they are just as likely to decline restaurants, nursing homes, auto dealers, auto service or entertainers. These are types of groups to be avoided or loaded because of their expected higher than normal experience.
Examples listed in the guidelines include religious organizations and employee leasing firms.
Insurers typically avoid businesses with a higher than average employee turnover. Nearly half of all group insurers instruct agents and underwriters to review high turnover businesses carefully. This applies particularly to service industries like restaurants and hotels. This applies to agricultural firms and farms, and also to certain types of seasonal sales operations or summer employment. Nearly half of group insurance companies have specific guidelines that factor in the number of previous insurance companies an employer group has used in the past three to five years.