Summer is here and your days are filled with joy and fresh air. The kids finally have a chance to get out of the house and play. Some kids will still stay in the house to play video games or read a book. However, most kids cannot wait to get out and enjoy the weather. They will go to the park, build a tree house, play sports or tag in the backyard. Life just could not be any better.
Most parents have one major concern when it comes to kids and that is accidents. They are so playful and adventurous but what happens when they slip and fall? Their footing could have been wrong on the stairs to the slide or they may not have been paying attention when that bat came around too fast. Now your kid is hurt, what do you do?
The fact is, most kids that are injured recover just fine. The likelihood they will be off and running again is very high. As parents, we just hope they remember not to do whatever it was they did, again.
As the years pass with health insurance, more and more families are taking higher deductibles to keep premiums more in lined with their budget. At the time of this writing, we are in the longest recession in the history of this wonderful nation. This has put even more strain on the family's budget as well as savings in the bank. One accident can deplete the funds really fast. Then the family has nothing to fall back on.
The average deductibles for the family are $2,500 for each person or $5,000 family if they are on an HSA. After you have met the $2,500 deductible for each family member, usually with a max of 3 deductibles, you will still have co-insurance (cost sharing with the insurance carrier) until you reach your maximum out-of-pocket. This can easily be a total of $4,500 - $5,500, depending on your plan. Splitting the difference at $5,000 out-of-pocket max, for an individual would be fair to use as an example and comparative to a $5,000 family deductible on an HSA.
Taking an affordable monthly investment of about $50 per month it would take 8 years and 4 months to save $5,000. There is a good chance injury would happen in 8 years with kids running around, unless you are lucky. If you are that lucky you might also have good chances at playing the lotto.
The insurance industry has what they call 'supplemental insurance' specifically designed for accidents. It is a reimbursement for your out-of-pocket exposure for an injury up to the max you pick for the policy, i.e. 2,500, 5,000, 10,000... 25,000. It is for each injury that occurs. There is a small $100 or $250 deductible that you will have to meet for each injury, but that is peanuts compared to the full bill. You are then reimbursed up to the maximum benefit, and in the above mentioned example it would be $5,000.
Take a case study of a business owner in the south suburbs of Chicago who went with a high deductible plan and added the accident supplemental insurance to it. One day during a sports activity he blew out his knee and had to have surgery. The bill racked up to about $27,000. Typically, he would have had $5,000 out-of-pocket. However, by adding this supplemental insurance his total out-of-pocket expense was $100.00! That's it!
What does this cost? The cost of pizza and few beers (or sodas) per month. That's it. In the example above it would take almost 8 1/2 years to save $5,000. Financially, this is a much better way to leverage insurance without depleting the family's savings account.
Now the summer can go on with all the joys and laughter every family ever hopes for. As the sun sets on the summer days ahead, knowing you did the right thing with an accident supplemental insurance will give you peace of mind that everyone should enjoy.
Butch Zemar
www.EliteBenefits.net