For the last week or so I’ve been receiving email and text messages about open enrollment for Health Care. Between November 15 and December 15 we have the opportunity to make changes to our health care plans for the 2015 coverage year. You might be wondering why you’d want to change? Perhaps the health care…
Several years ago I worked with a business owner for whom I had great respect. One particular day I was in the office, she came in talking about estate planning and reported that she and her husband had finally decided to sit down together and plan for both their home and business in-case one or…
All it took was a few hours in the emergency department, a chest x-ray and three days as an in-patient with IV antibiotics and steroids to blow my budget out of the water. The deductibles and co-pays for that trip to the hospital took nearly a year to pay off, and several times I received…
Years ago, when I was younger and more care free, I didn’t worry so much about things like dental insurance. I took care of my teeth as best I could to avoid going to the dentist, so I didn’t need insurance or so I thought. I found out later how wrong I was when I…
Although Monday is the deadline to enroll in a healthcare plan, there are still many people unsure of what to do. High deductible/low premium or low deductible/high premium plans have some of us confused. And, then there are the plans that seem to fit, but then have hidden costs, like a deductible for prescriptions that…
Just a week before the deadline, the push is on to sign up for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. There are a number of reasons people are waiting, but not having healthcare coverage when you need it because you don’t think you can afford it, isn’t a good reason to let the…
“I thought if I bought a Term Life policy, only my beneficiaries would receive the benefits.” What if you’d been paying into your life insurance policy for 20 years or more and suddenly became ill and unable to work? You’ve paid premiums into the thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and yet, you…
Disability Insurance isn’t new. As an insurance product it evolved out of accident coverage back in the late 1800s. Although the idea of replacing lost income due to accidents and injuries was a good one, the subjective nature of the term “disability” and the ease with which the policies could be abused caused the insurers…
I’ve had life insurance since I was 17, health insurance coverage most of my adult life, car insurance, home-owners, renters and even postal insurance, but I’d never heard of Critical Illness coverage until recently. So I did some digging. It is fairly new in the U.S. and the growth in the insurance industry is still…
“During 2013 my COBRA Healthcare Plan was manageable, but January 1st my premiums triple and the deductible/co-pays are exorbitant. I am still unemployed and don’t know what to do. What are my options?” There are a number of changes coming in 2014, including changes to the levels at which the Federal Government is funding Medicaid.…