Think You Can Afford to Skip Health Insurance?

The number of uninsured young adults continues to increase. Thirty-eight percent of high school graduates have no health insurance, and 34% of college graduates lack coverage.

Even when young adults are able to secure a job with benefits, those often don't kick in until several weeks, or even months, into employment. The result is a lapse in coverage that could wreck a person's finances for years in the event of catastrophic injury or illness.

"One of the reasons young adults aren't covered is because they think it's too expensive," says Robert Zirkelbach of America's Health Insurance Plans, a health insurance company lobbying group. "Individual health care coverage is more affordable and accessible than is widely known." According to Zirkelbach, 90% of young adults who apply for insurance are offered coverage, and the annual premiums average $1,359 for ages 18 to 24 and $1,534 for ages 25 to 29.

What is too expensive: bills that aren't supplemented by insurance. Medical bills have the power to bankrupt you fast. Even if you are the picture of health, one false step could land you in financial ruin. "A lot of people feel invincible at that age, but I would never tell people not to have insurance," says Dave Hernandez, and founder of Wealth Engineering LLC in Scottsdale, Ariz. "It's the last thing someone at that age thinks about because they're in top mental and physical shape with the whole world ahead of them," he says. "But accidents happen."...