The best time to enroll in a Medigap plan is during your Medigap Open Enrollment Period, which starts the month you turn 65 and are enrolled in Medicare Part B. During this 6-month window, insurers cannot deny you coverage or charge you more based on your health.
Medigap is supplemental insurance that helps cover costs Original Medicare doesn't pay, like copays and deductibles. The most important window is your Medigap Open Enrollment Period. It opens the first month you are both 65 and enrolled in Part B, and it lasts six months. During that window, any insurance company that sells Medigap in your state must sell you a policy, and they cannot turn you away or charge you more because of a health condition. That protection is called guaranteed issue rights.After that window closes, things get harder. Most insurers can ask about your health history and charge you more, or even decline to sell you a policy at all, depending on what state you live in. Utah does not have strong state-level protections beyond what federal law requires, so waiting can cost you.There are some situations where you get a special guaranteed issue right later, like if you lose employer coverage or move out of a plan's service area. But those windows are narrow, usually 63 days. If you are younger than 65 and on Medicare due to a disability, federal law does not require insurers to sell you a Medigap policy, though some may choose to. Always verify current rules and plan details directly with an insurer or a licensed agent.
In Utah, carriers like SelectHealth, Regence BlueCross, and others sell Medigap plans, but availability and pricing vary. A free consultation with a Utah ADRC (the state's SHIP program) can help you compare options without any sales pressure.
For you, this means the month you turn 65 and start Part B is the single most important window to shop for a Medigap plan, and waiting can make it harder or more expensive to get covered later.
Our Commitment to Reliable Medicare Information
At Resting Sycamore Advisors, we work to provide accurate, current, and trustworthy information about Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, and Special Needs Plans.
To do that, we use data published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which is the official source for Medicare plan and enrollment information.
Our Medicare plan pages and comparison tools are powered by CMS datasets, including:
When possible, we link to the original CMS resources so you can review the source material directly.
We follow the CMS release schedule and update our website as new data becomes available.
We load new plan year Landscape and PBP files before the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period (October 15 through December 7). We also monitor CMS.gov for updates or revisions and refresh our content when needed.
We update enrollment and performance data as CMS publishes revised files, which are typically released monthly or quarterly.
We routinely monitor CMS announcements for corrections, reissued files, or other changes and update our pages accordingly.
Each plan page includes a Last Accessed date so visitors can see when the source information was most recently reviewed.
CMS data can be difficult to read in raw form. To make it easier to use, we format and organize the data for clarity.
This includes:
All data values come from CMS. We do not change the underlying values beyond formatting, organization, and presentation.
We keep internal records of the CMS dataset versions used on our site.
If CMS issues corrected or revised files, we update our website to reflect the latest available version.
Please keep the following in mind:
For personalized Medicare assistance, please use these official resources: