(FORTUNE Magazine) – DEAR ANNIE: I've been with my current employer for 22 years. A few months ago we reached a mutual agreement to part ways at the end of 2000. In the meantime, one of my children was diagnosed with cancer. What are the implications for my "hirability" after I leave this job? Will having a serious (and potentially costly) preexisting health condition in the family disqualify me from consideration by other employers? SCARED

DEAR SCARED: I can understand your worry, but try to put this concern out of your mind, because federal law is entirely on your side. First of all, the Americans With Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, prohibits job interviewers from quizzing you about your own health, let alone that of anyone else in your family. In enforcement guidelines issued in 1994, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission spelled out examples of interview questions that are illegal under ADA, including "How many days were you sick last year?," "Have you ever filed for workers' compensation?," and "Do you have a disability that would interfere with your ability to perform this job?" So, clearly, dragging your children's health into the discussion would be so far out of line that any employer with a lawyer (or several) somewhere on the premises is not likely to risk it.

And that's not all. Paul Fronstin, a senior researcher at the Employee Benefits Research Institute in Washington, D.C., points out that the old rules about preexisting conditions (yours or your dependents') were turned upside down by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. "This law has caused many insurance companies to get rid of preexisting-condition exclusions altogether," Fronstin says. As the law's name implies, your current health insurance is portable: When you leave your job, the human resources people are required to offer you COBRA coverage (named not after a reptile but after the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985), which extends your current medical benefits for up to 18 months. You will have to begin within 60 days to pay for this coverage out of your own pocket, and since you'll no longer be getting an employer-subsidized group discount, it won't be cheap. Your next employer will be obligated to provide the same medical benefits everyone else on its payroll is getting, without excluding any preexisting condition.

You have enough on your plate right now without having to fear that you won't be eligible for health insurance--and luckily it's one fear you needn't have.

DEAR ANNIE: My company receives lots of letters that begin "Dear Sir(s)," and that annoys me. How can people in this day and age assume that the person they are writing to--that is, the person in charge--is male? Is there a tactful way to add a line to a response to let them know that our founders, president, vice presidents, and office manager are all women? Or should I just ignore it? LEENA

DEAR LEENA: Well, it would probably be better for your blood pressure if you could learn not to let this kind of minutiae get to you. How many letters do you suppose Carleton Fiorina has gotten in the course of her career that started "Dear Sir"? Hundreds? Thousands? Yet she's managed to persevere and now is CEO of Hewlett-Packard. And who is writing these letters, anyway? If they are people you expect to deal with on a regular basis, especially (at some point) in person, they'll soon realize their mistake without your having to embarrass them by pointing it out.

However, Marjorie Brody, president of a business-etiquette training and consulting firm called Brody Communications (www.brodycommunications.com), does join you in wishing that people would take the trouble, before writing a business letter, to ascertain exactly to whom they are writing. In her new book, Professional Impressions: Etiquette for Everyone, Every Day (Career Skills Press, $12.95), she notes that she knows of one company that nearly lost a major client--Andersen Consulting--by misspelling "Andersen." Her moral: "Never assume. Always double-check."

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