Group Health Cooperative is offering consumers the ability to electronically submit applications for individual-plan coverage online.

“Other plans allow you to print out an application and mail it in, but we’re the first to allow the submission of an application over the Web using an e-signature,” said Group Health’s Director of Individual and Family Plans, Greg Scully.

A new e-signature feature allows potential customers to sign their completed application form online. Group Health is using eHealthSystems of Sunnyvale, Calif. to provide the technical link on MyGroupHealth, Group Health’s Web site.

By going online to Group Health’s Web site, www.ghc.org, consumers can see all of Group Health’s plans, get price quotes, and enroll electronically for coverage.

Individual plans are offered to individuals who do not have coverage through an employer. As the state’s third largest health care system, providing coverage to one-out-of-every-10 Washington residents, Group Health has nearly 22,000 individual-plan members.

Scully projects that about 30 percent of all new individual-plan customers will use the electronic application.

“We see that more consumers every day are moving all of their personal finance activities to the Internet,” said Sam Gibbs, General Manager of eHealthSystems. “As a leader in customer service, it’s not surprising that Group Health would be the first health plan to offer Washington consumers the opportunity to not only find plans online but to be able to complete and submit the application online.”.