Health insurance is necessary coverage, but your coverage doesn’t offer complete protection. For your yearly exam and office visits, you may have very little personal expense. But in other circumstances, your insurance may leave a substantial balance for you to cover. What if you or a family member become injured? There may be lab tests, x-rays, professional fees, and other medical expenses. These costs can quickly accumulate.
First there was the seatbelt. It was considered essential protection in the event of an automobile accident. Then came the air bag – an advancement that offered added protection from bodily injury in a collision.
Today virtually every car on the road has both kinds of protection – each working to complement the safety benefits of the other.
As we turn the corner on a new year, it’s likely that you have finalized your health insurance decisions for yourself and your family. But with the higher deductibles, copays and coverage limits of most health insurance plans today, many of our clients are choosing to supplement their primary coverage with an additional kind of protection – accident insurance.
“It was an accident!” Those words, often spoken mournfully, demonstrate that as common as accidents are, we are often unhappily surprised by them. And indeed, accidents are very common. In the United States, every 7 seconds a disabling injury is caused by a motor vehicle crash,* and 1 in 5 Americans visit the emergency room at least once a year.**
When you or a family member is injured, you know that your medical insurance will take care of a good portion of your medical bills, but there are additional expenses (medical and non-medical in nature) that can accumulate quickly. How can you financially prepare for this unhappy situation?
By definition, an accident is neither expected nor intended; in other words, you don’t see it coming, and when it does ... you wish it hadn’t. Out-of-pocket medical costs are also an unexpected surprise for many when an accident occurs. If you or a family member falls from a ladder, breaks an ankle during a soccer game, or burns an arm while trying out the new electric pressure cooker; expenses that aren’t covered by health insurance may add up quickly.
For TMA members, help is available to pay for the out-of-pocket costs related to an accident. Now that you have health insurance in place for the new year, why not examine your family’s need for accident insurance coverage?
Everything was going well that Saturday morning. The weather was perfect; you and your family were enjoying your daughter’s track meet - and she was doing very well. But when her left foot touched the ground upon landing in the long jump event, something went terribly wrong. She crumbled to the ground and curled up in tremendous pain.
After following up with her orthopedic surgeon, you were told that she had torn her ACL.
Insurance. If you’re a Millennial, the word probably evokes yawns and shrugs. But insurance is needed for many reasons in our lives. We purchase travel policies when we book a vacation. We insure our cars. But what happens when that car gets smashed by another car, sending you sideways into the landscape? Or the plane falls out of the sky? Or you get sick.
These are dramatic images, but they can happen. To anyone. At any age.
As a physician, you are well aware of the benefits of traditionally-known insurance types, such as standard health, life and disability. While these plans are crucial in terms of protection, what if you prefer covering high deductible costs, out-of-pocket expenses your regular insurance plan does not cover, or suddenly face a critical illness that will require having extra cash on hand? When these life events arise, you can protect yourself and your family with an extra level of defense provided by a supplemental insurance plan.
