So, my company pays the premiums for our health and dental insurance so the employees pay nothing out of pocket, which sounds great at first.
Until you need to actually use it. Then you realize that not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the insurance is probably the cheapest/lowest coverage you can get.
Case in point, my wife is in the 3 step process of getting an implant/crown (extraction, implant, crown). According to insurance, they pay 50% of major restorative services such as this, which sounds alright.
Until you realize that your cap for the entire year is a lousy $1000 per person. And yes, cleanings come out of that. So a couple hundred bucks per cleaning and you are left with a whopping $600 for the year, everything else is out of pocket. Also, there is no rollover year to year. Use it or lose it. Also, between my wife and I, we get $2000. Of course, we can't pool this $2000 and share it. So even though I haven't hit my cap, we still need to pay everything out of pocket on hers when I have money that won't get used. Perhaps being able to pool the money wouldn't be fair to single people, who will only get $1000, but I'd like to think of the ability to pool the money as a perk of being married, but such perk doesn't exist I guess.
So in the end, my wife's implant will cost $7,000. Spread out across two insurance years, it will be $5k out of pocket, plus we already had to pay for her second cleaning this year since we hit this cap. Additionally, we will have to pay for both of her cleanings next year out of pocket as well. And on top of all this, it turns out one of her permanent retainers is busted (no idea how that happened) so we will have to pay out of pocket to have that fixed as well.
So all in all, the dental insurance is basically worthless for anything beyond a couple cleanings and maybe a filling. A big scam more or less, even for my company since the company indeed does pay a premium to them but they certainly don't get much back; I don't know what my company pays in premiums but if the maximum return is $1000 per person, I would sure hope the premium is next to zero.
My health insurance is free too, but with a $5000 deductible before the insurance starts paying 80/20. Preventive care is at least covered 100% though. But that's another can of worms.
So, I was wondering, right now my wife declines insurance at her job since she's on my policy, but I was thinking is it possible to have/use two different types of insurance? Could we sign up for insurance through her job also and use both when we go to the dentist?
On the same vein - don't get it political - I was thinking as an alternate to that maybe we could get in on Obamacare for supplemental insurance in addition to mine if we find something good there?
So does anyone use two kinds of insurance and how does that work when it comes time for the insurance companies to divvy up and pay out? Or do they just point the finger at the other one to max out before they will step up and make it a big cluster that isn't worth the hassle and would leave me holding the bag?
Until you need to actually use it. Then you realize that not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the insurance is probably the cheapest/lowest coverage you can get.
Case in point, my wife is in the 3 step process of getting an implant/crown (extraction, implant, crown). According to insurance, they pay 50% of major restorative services such as this, which sounds alright.
Until you realize that your cap for the entire year is a lousy $1000 per person. And yes, cleanings come out of that. So a couple hundred bucks per cleaning and you are left with a whopping $600 for the year, everything else is out of pocket. Also, there is no rollover year to year. Use it or lose it. Also, between my wife and I, we get $2000. Of course, we can't pool this $2000 and share it. So even though I haven't hit my cap, we still need to pay everything out of pocket on hers when I have money that won't get used. Perhaps being able to pool the money wouldn't be fair to single people, who will only get $1000, but I'd like to think of the ability to pool the money as a perk of being married, but such perk doesn't exist I guess.
So in the end, my wife's implant will cost $7,000. Spread out across two insurance years, it will be $5k out of pocket, plus we already had to pay for her second cleaning this year since we hit this cap. Additionally, we will have to pay for both of her cleanings next year out of pocket as well. And on top of all this, it turns out one of her permanent retainers is busted (no idea how that happened) so we will have to pay out of pocket to have that fixed as well.
So all in all, the dental insurance is basically worthless for anything beyond a couple cleanings and maybe a filling. A big scam more or less, even for my company since the company indeed does pay a premium to them but they certainly don't get much back; I don't know what my company pays in premiums but if the maximum return is $1000 per person, I would sure hope the premium is next to zero.
My health insurance is free too, but with a $5000 deductible before the insurance starts paying 80/20. Preventive care is at least covered 100% though. But that's another can of worms.
So, I was wondering, right now my wife declines insurance at her job since she's on my policy, but I was thinking is it possible to have/use two different types of insurance? Could we sign up for insurance through her job also and use both when we go to the dentist?
On the same vein - don't get it political - I was thinking as an alternate to that maybe we could get in on Obamacare for supplemental insurance in addition to mine if we find something good there?
So does anyone use two kinds of insurance and how does that work when it comes time for the insurance companies to divvy up and pay out? Or do they just point the finger at the other one to max out before they will step up and make it a big cluster that isn't worth the hassle and would leave me holding the bag?
