If you are buying insurance for the first time, you may want to get a health care insurance agent to help you. If you are purchasing it from your employer, work with your company’s health care representative, human resources or personnel department.

Understanding health insurance policies is not easy and it doesn’t help that there are many new industry-wide laws which are changing very rapidly. Unless you are a professional, comparing policies can be very tricky. Health care is expensive and mistakes can be costly.

Start by deciding if you want to purchase your insurance through the Health Care Marketplace at www.healthcare.gov. If you do, the website offers a number of tools and informative articles to help you compare policies.

If you want to get an individual health insurance plan, begin by comparing and selecting an agent or broker. The National Association of Health Underwriters has a find an agent tool to help you. Choose several to interview. Ask them how many companies they represent and how they are paid. Some receive a percentage of the type of plan they sell you, which rewards them for selling you more than you need.

Share your health care and financial information openly and honestly with your broker. That way, he or she can narrow the options more efficiently. An agent who asks if you qualify for programs such as COBRA (which extends employer-provided insurance after you leave a job) or health care subsidies is an honest one; if you choose one of those options, the agent does not make any money.

Compare policies with the agent present. Ask why these are the ones selected for consideration. Inquire about differences and everything you do not understand.

Have the broker help you fill out an application. Getting something wrong cannot only cause a claim denial later---it can cause the company to reject the application. If that happens, you have to tell all of the companies you contact afterward that you were denied coverage. Not good.

When the policy arrives, have a meeting to discuss it with your broker. Make sure you understand how it works. There could be thousands of dollars at stake and one of the most common causes of bankruptcy is a series of overwhelming medical bills.