What Your Insurance Agent Wants You to Know About…Insurance
The first thing your insurance agent wants you to know is that almost nothing is carved in stone. You can make changes to your insurance polices as your needs and circumstances change. Your agent is there to help you do that. Many families struggle to pay expensive insurance premiums when their financial situations change, but if you talk to your agent early enough when financial distress sets in you can make changes that will help you keep your policies active while you work toward rebuilding your finances.
The second thing your insurance agent wants you to know is that you can always ask questions. Insurance really is a complicated business. Someone once said that every insurance policy was written through dozens of lawsuits, and that is really very true. So don’t obligate yourself to pretending you understand everything the first time your agent explains it to you. If you want to sit down and talk with your agent 2 or 3 times a year, they welcome the opportunity to help you understand your insurance needs better. That strengthens their relationship with you and as business people they want to provide good customer service.
And now here are some tips about insurance that you may not be aware of. Talk to your agent about these options, in case they may be of help to you.
Your Auto Insurance Can Supplement Your Medical Insurance
Statistics show us that most serious injuries occur in automobile accidents. If you are seriously injured while operating or riding in your vehicle (and this includes boats, motorcycles, and other insurable vehicles) you may not have enough major medical and default medical coverage in your plans to cover all your expenses. Fortunately, most if not all major vehicle insurance plans allow you to increase the amount of medical coverage to help take care of those major expenses. And these increases are often relatively inexpensive.
You cannot use vehicle medical insurance for illnesses or injuries that occur outside your vehicles, so don’t mistake a vehicle medical coverage for major medical insurance. This is simply a way to bundle a little extra accident insurance with your vehicle insurance. The more you use your vehicle the more likely you will be in an accident. Thankfully, most people do not experience accidents in their vehicles but it’s good to know you have flexibility.
Major Medical Insurance Does Not Help Much With Catastrophic Illnesses
It’s great to know your doctor’s office accepts your major medical insurance and that you have some hospital coverage. But if you come down with a serious illness (including cancer, stroke, heart disease, kidney failure, and other serious ailments) your major medical insurance will run out quickly. Fortunately there are supplemental insurance plans that help you take care of those additional costs. These supplemental plans are most often made available through employers but some insurers now offer at least a few supplemental plans directly to consumers.
Types of supplemental insurance that you may want to consider include:
Accidental Death & Dismemberment These accident plans pay you compensation if you suffer grievous injury in an accident (such as losing a hand or finger), they may pay ambulance costs, and if you are killed in an accident they’ll provide enough coverage to help your family with funeral costs. Many schools and members-only organizations provide accident plans that are very inexpensive. The next time you receive an offer in the mail, think about using it to supplement your major medical insurance. You can usually keep these plans for life (or until they pay off for certain types of injuries).
Catastrophic Illness These catastrophic illness plans often provide special benefits such as annual wellness exams, covering special tests that major medical insurance doesn’t cover, and sometimes even providing enough cash to cover your co-insurance obligation on a major medical plan. Catastrohpic illness plans are designed to help you with expenses that major medical insurance either does not cover or only covers for a short time.
Cancer Most people know that 1 out of 4 women contract cancer in their lifetimes. However, most people do NOT know that 1 out of 3 men contract cancer. A cancer insurance policy provides much better coverage for expensive cancer treatments and therapies that major medical doesn’t include.
Risks and Costs Increase As You Get Older
The time to invest in these kinds of supplemental policies is when you are just starting out and have extra money. You can lock in low premiums for these plans in your 20s and 30s. The only downside is that you have to keep paying the premiums in order to use the coverage when you’re most likely to need it: in your 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond.
Although it may seem like a burden to buy insurance you don’t need at the time it’s cheap, you’ll thank yourself decades down the road if you keep those plans active and catastrophic illness strikes you. Insurance plans are revised from time to time and many people have observed that the benefits may be reduced when plan revisions are announced. You may never see lost benefits return to plan portfolios, so not only will you save money on premiums by purchasing plans early on, you may retain more benefits than many people who wait end up obtaining.
Insurance is not really anyone’s favorite topic. But it’s an important topic for everyone who is responsible for their own health and wellfare and for the health and welfare of their loved ones.
If you have been putting off taking care of your insurance needs, there is no better time than now to schedule an appointment with your local insurance agent to take the time to discuss your present needs and your future options.
And, remember: it’s okay to ask the same question a few times over. Insurance is not as simple as we would all like it to be!
