When obtaining health insurance quotes, applicants must inform the insurance company of any pre-existing conditions that they may be afflicted by. Insurance companies use this information to assess how much risk each person constitutes and how much the insurance carrier should charge based on the amount of risk they are taking on. They can even go so far as to deny coverage entirely or insist on a waiting period before coverage starts. But depending on the severity of the condition, they almost always mean higher premiums. However, there are certain conditions that health insurance companies cannot use to deny coverage.

The conditions may vary from state to state due to local laws but for the most part they are nationwide. One such example pertains to children whose parents want to have them covered on their health insurance plan. As of September 2010, children below the age of 19 may not be denied coverage on their parent's health plan based on pre-existing conditions. Carriers are also forbidden from covering a child with the exclusion of any treatment that pertains to the pre-existing condition. Being a victim of domestic abuse also cannot be considered a pre-existing condition for an insurance provider creating health insurance quotes.

As of June 21, 2010, a national high-risk pool was formed consisting of people who had been unable to find coverage due to their pre-existing condition for 6 months. People are divided into similar groups and a set premium price is assigned to them. This is meant as a temporary way for people with pre-existing conditions to obtain an affordable health insurance quote. Using this resource, they may be paying more than someone without a pre-existing condition but they can at least obtain the security and benefits that health insurance provides that they had been unable to acquire previously. And due to recently passed legislation, as of the beginning of 2014, insurance providers will no longer be able to deny coverage to any adults for any reason. They will also not be able to charge higher rates based on pre-existing conditions or gender. This will eliminate the need for a high-risk pool as health insurance companies will no longer be able to charge higher premiums to those that they believe are at a higher risk.

So while there are very few examples of conditions that have to be entirely overlooked by health insurance companies when compiling a health insurance quote, the whole system is in the process of changing to allow everyone access to health insurance. Even now, people with pre-existing conditions have access to insurance via the high-risk pools and in a few years, those will be obsolete.