When I started my first real job a month or two ago, I had to do the whole benefits election thing – if youre not familiar with it, its where you go in and pick your different insurance options and all that good stuff – if your company offers it of course. Well, the way these things work is that you make your choice 1 time each year – so whatever selections you make is what you�re stuck with until the next enrollment period. I rarely get sick, at least sick enough to go to the doctor, so I chose to go with the catastrophic insurance plan. That means I have a huge deductible ($1500) and then they pay 80% of the reasonable fee from medical services after that. Each year, its capped with a $3000 out of pocket maximum. Even though I didnt think I would need it, I decided to open a savings account to put $3000 in – just in case I had anything come up. This way, I earn a little interest on the money and as long as I keep the account balance at $3000, I shouldnt have any money issues related to medical expenses.
Well, this weekend I ended up tripping on my garage and breaking my foot. It broke bad enough that I had to have surgery today to go in and put it back together. Since everything happened so recently, I dont have any bills just yet for any of the services, but you can bet Ive maxed out my deductible at the very least. This was the last thing I was expecting to happen when I setup my insurance plan, but since I planned ahead and stored money away as soon as I started getting my paychecks, everything is going to work out ok. If I hadnt, I would probably have to put all of this on my credit cards and let the interest build up as I paid it down slowly – so in the end it would cost quite a bit more than the actual medical service cost.
The point of all of this is that you should make sure you always understand the implications of the choices youre making. Whether its an insurance plan, the type of home financing youre getting, or whatever else you might have to do, you should always understand the worst case scenario. (E.g. I also have a saving account for my other deductibles for my home insurance and such so those are covered too.) Its nice knowing that things are taken care of in a time like this – and the whole ordeal was something would have never guessed would happenso you just never know what tomorrow holds for you.