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“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for Aflac. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.”
Insurance is certainly a topic that most of us find confusing and many of us just do what we need to and move on. Did you know that 74 percent of workers sometimes or never understand everything that is covered by their insurance policy today?
I admit that I am one of the 74%. I really don’t know what is covered. When I was going through our fertility issues, I probably called them about once a day to find out what was covered and what was not covered. “Can I go to ___ Doctor?”
“What about ____ treatment?”
“Really? Our insurance won’t cover that? That should be standard. I just don’t understand how it isn’t covered. It is so important!”
“Ok, Ok… I see. You are telling me that we are going to owe… a lot.”
There are many times that I wish I would have known about a company like Aflac, that offers additional coverage. With many companies facing the decision to limit or decrease employer-paid benefits (so many companies!), these companies, like Aflac, can offer us the option to lower our health care expenses without any extra cost to the company. It is like closing a gap.
Did you know that nearly 37 percent of workers think it will be more difficult to understand everything in their health care policy with the changes dictated by health care reform?
Here are a few more interesting tips:
- 50 percent of employees agreed that $25 is the maximum increase to their monthly health insurance premium that they are able to cover financially;
- 83 percent of workers are only willing to spend up to $1,000 for their health insurance deductible each year;
- 4-out-of-10 employees will have to cut expenses elsewhere to cover the difference if monthly premiums increase; and
- 20 percent will trade down on their benefits package, accepting decreased coverage to get a lower premium.
On top of that, nearly half of employees surveyed (46 percent) have less than $1,000 in savings for medical expenses.What Mistakes Can Employees Avoid?
The fact is many workers simply don’t understand their employer’s benefits offerings and the majority (68 percent) admit to making mistakes or having regrets during the open enrollment process. I am one of that 68%, as well. We have wished that we could have changed our policy several times. They say that ‘hindsight is 20/20’ for a reason.The Aflac survey found that more than half (54 percent) of workers waste up to $750 because of benefits mistakes made during open enrollment.
There are also online resources that can be helpful to employers. One website to look at is aflac.com/healthcare_reform. The site includes regular updates and tools to help employers. Visitors to the site will find a Health Care Reform Communications Toolkit, the Employer’s Guide, HCR Essentials and Consumer-Driven Health Care Insights.
‘Starting this fall (Oct 1), open enrollment begins for the Health Insurance Marketplace. Managed by each state and/or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this public marketplace is where people can access coverage information; compare insurance plans; and buy health insurance online, through the mail, by phone or with the help of an agent, broker, or navigator.’ – Aflac
Great advice from Aflac- I was one of the 74% , too Becky. I just shared Aflac’s page with my husband.
Thanks so much for posting this. Do you know how confusing it really is? That page really had a lot of great information. I really learned more from reading that page than from months of my own research.
That’s true. Three out of four workers don’t really understand what they’re insurance is really about. We have the same results of stats.