Health insurance is not cheap in Alabama or anywhere else. In fact, it has become so expensive that 16% of all Alabama residents can't afford to pay for health insurance at all. Fortunately there are steps that almost every Alabama resident can take that will save them hundreds of dollars each and every year on it.

First, you need to find group health insurance and not individual health insurance. If your place of employment doesn't offer you an affordable group health plan don't give up. Did you know that many groups, organizations and associations offer their members low-cost group health? Ask around. If you don't belong to a group that provides members with group health see if any of your family or friends belong to such an organization. If so - join.

Don't smoke cigarettes or use chew. You've heard it all before a thousand times, but it's still true. You will not find the cheapest insurance if you smoke or use chew.

Unfortunately you also won't find it if you are overweight. Insurance companies base your premium, at least in part, on your Body Mass Index (BMI). There is hope, however. If you can manage to lose even a handful of pounds it is possible that you will drop down a notch on the insurance company's BMI chart - and if you are lucky enough for that to happen then you could save money every single month.

Paying your premiums automatically each month saves your insurance company the expense of billing you and they will pass a portion of that savings on to you. If you don't see your doctor on a regular basis then it will pay you handsomely to increase your co-payment to 50%.

Increasing your deductible will save you money instantly. Increase your deductible to the highest level you feel comfortable with, just keep in mind that you will be required to pay your deductible out of your own resources each year so don't go overboard.

Finally you can save a great deal and most easily find the cheapest high risk health insurance in Alabama if you look for your insurance online. Obviously you want to see the largest number of quotes possible so you can be certain of finding the best possible price, and the only way to do that is to run your price comparisons on more than one site.

But once you've taken the time to run your comparisons on multiple sites then all that's left is for you to review all the prices you found and simply pick the lowest one. This is how you find the very best price possible on health insurance here in the great state of Alabama.

Finding cheap medical insurance companies in Alabama is becoming harder and harder to do. It seems that no medical insurance is cheap any longer. In fact, the cost of medical insurance has gotten so high that more than 16% of all families in Alabama are currently without health insurance of any kind. Fortunately if you find yourself in that position, or close to it, there are a number of things you can do today that can lower the cost of your health insurance as quickly as tomorrow.

If you haven't already set up the automatic payment of your monthly premium directly from your bank account then do so today. This isn't a huge savings, but every little bit adds up.

If you don't see your doctor very often in a normal year then increase your co-payment from 25% to 50%. This can save you several hundreds of dollars over the course of a year.

If you can possibly afford it, increasing your deductible will decrease your monthly premium almost instantly. Just be sure that you have the resources to pay for the additional deductible each year before your insurance takes over.

If you smoke or use chew you simply must quit if you want any chance of finding the cheapest medical insurance you can. If you're serious about saving money then you've got to get serious about quitting smoking.

You've also got to get serious about improving your health in general. Stop eating at fast food restaurants - or at least cut back the number of days you do considerably. Do not super-size meals and do not buy french-fries or other fried items. Changing your eating habits is not as difficult as you might think.

Getting a little exercise will improve your health and help you lose weight. Walk around the block a few times each week. Ride your bike to do errands or ride your bike to school each morning with your kids. Join a group that walks around the mall each morning. Get up, get out and move around!

There's only one place for you to find the cheapest medical insurance companies in Alabama and that's online. It's not hard to find several websites that allow you to make comparisons of health insurance prices from different insurance companies. Just make sure that you check out the prices from a number of different sites rather than relying on just one site.

But after you've taken the time to make comparisons on 3 or more websites you should have sufficient choices to pick the very best rate for health insurance that you are likely to find.