I don't know if anyone has tried for health insurance thru Assurant but I had it for a while and was approved with dysplasia on my history. Find a local insurance agent to do it for you because they know how to get it to go thru.
My CEO was taking insurance premiums out of our checks yet not paying them to BCBS. So BCBS stopped our coverage, denied claims and would not talk to anyone but the CEO, who's a big fat liar. One of my co workers was diagnosed with Lupus during this time and it was so sad. She couldn't get coverage from anywhere. We work for a medical billing company so it was sooo frustrating. I signed up for Assurant. Dave Ramsey raves about them. There is a HSA (Health Savings Account) attatched to it. My deductible was $2500 but after that paid 100%. Any money I put in to the HSA was tax deductible and can be used for every medical expense. It wasn't the best insurance but affordable for me ($175 a month).
And if you know you are going to quit a job or it will be a while between insurances than get a crappy little insurance while you still have insurance, even if you don't plan on using it. You get a creditable coverage letter after the end of any policy that usually lasts 2 months. This lets the new insurance company waive the waiting period for any pre-existing conditions.
If you don't have insurance or have a large deductible/copay you can bargain with the billing dept. Insurances write off almost 40% of most charges and bundle a lot of them if the doctor is in network so use that as your standing ground. Also, they want to move money off the books as fast as possible so you can threaten to pay $10 a month or 70% of the total (where an HSA comes in handy). And a lot of hospitals and doctors offices take charity cases and can advise you how to go about getting it.
And insurance companies are profit businesses. You are not a person to them you are a loss of revenue. The doctors are forced to get out of network with an insurance (and get paid squat) or stay in network and collect the fees from you. That's why I am all for National Health Insurance. Here's a link if you don't know about it
http://www.healthcare-now.org/resources/hr676.htm
I know this is really wordy but I hope it helps!