I hear it all the time. What if? What if I get sick and I need to use the insurance I have? Or I am generally healthy, and I never go to the doctor; but what if I do get sick? It is a real scare for most Americans including for myself and my family.
Here are 5 Insurance Secrets to help battle those fears by protecting yourself both financially and physically, and hopefully ease your mind!
1. Preventative Services! Use them!
Now that all health insurance is regulated by the government this is a good thing for you and your family. Preventative services are covered 100% through private insurances, Medicaid, and Medicare! This means you need to use it. Why not? You’re paying for it monthly so get some use out of it without it breaking your pocket. For women you can get your yearly mammograms and pap smears for free while men can get their yearly physicals as well.
2. Reimbursements for Health Clubs and Gyms!
This is one of the biggest insurance secrets. Did you know some insurance companies such as Medicare, will actually pay for your gym membership? Yes! This is getting to be more and more popular with the insurance companies. No matter if you’re 18 or 81 your insurance may cover this with no minimum attendance standards.
The best way to find out if your company participates is to call up your customer service line on the back of your card and talk to a representative. If they do give reimbursements, they will give you all the information on how to collect that money back! Do it NOW! Being healthy is one of the best preventions for cancer!
3. Nurse Lines!
This insurance secret is a free service for many insurance companies. Sometimes called Nurse on Call or other names depending on the company. These big health insurance companies have a private company that works for the insurance company to help ease your mind at 3am. This is completely private and abides by all HIPPA laws. This would be good if you’re having signs of something that you are not quite 100% sure about such as blood or bruises in areas that are not quite normal for you yet maybe you’re too busy to drop everything to go to the doctor.
I had a very good family member ignore some very disturbing signs because of his work schedule just to find out he had pancreatic cancer and ended up passing from it because it was too far advanced. So hear my message, please do not ignore signs, use the nursing lines. Once again you can call customer service to find out information on this as well.
4. Buy Cancer Insurance!
What I am talking about is cancer specific plans. These plans are low-cost individual or family plans that pay out a specific amount in the event of cancer. My family and I have one that only costs us $23 a quarter for 4 of us to be covered. What I did for us was that I purchased a $10,000 lump sum plan. This means if any of us gets a cancer diagnosis we will get $10,000 in the form of a check directly to us. My plan would be to use this for our deductible and copays and the rest could be put in the savings account to cover travel or loss of pay that we would be battling with if one or both of the adults are out of work.
5. Life Insurance riders!
Check with your life insurance to see if you have a critical illness or terminal illness rider. In the event that your illness is going to cause you to lose your life in the next 12 months, some life insurance policies will forward you part or all of your death benefit before your actual death. You can then use this any way that you want. You can take a trip or you can use this to pay things off. It is up to you!
These are just some of the ways to help protect yourself in the event of cancer or another serious illness. As always, you should talk to a licensed insurance agent for specific advice about your situation. Here at SBG we work with all the products and services in this article. We would love to show your family how we can protect you today! 941-456-1253
