Nevermind the oil companies....we need to worry about the health industry!

Do you remember when you were going to your job and you were happy with the benefits you received? You were supposed to wake up, get dressed, go to work, and with that career you were taken care of. These benefits included any of the following like health, vision, dental, long and short term disability, retirement plans like pensions or 401k's. This is no longer business, they are trying to save on the bottom line and us the workers are put on the chopping block. What does this mean?

Well you are probably reading this and you have so much loyalty to your company you think they wouldn't do this for you. Well hopefully this will open your eyes a little bit with the process of benefits, why they are available to the workplace, then what is the best choice for you when choosing employee benefits. Let's start with why are benefits available in the workplace. Well of course it is because your employer loves you so much and you do a great bang up job.....Sadly no, your employer is now offering these benefits because of two major reasons.

The benefits increase retention and the hiring process, people want to work somewhere they can have these benefits taken care of. Then second reason is these benefits are a tax write off for the company. If you think your health insurance is expensive that you are paying for, the full price of the health insurance is twice what you pay. Your employer has to take a minimum of 50% of the insurance that is offered. This gives the employer a write off of the funds that are spent on paying the half of your health insurance.

Also when it comes to choosing the correct health insurance for you, this is something that you need to talk to the person that is enrolling everyone. But we can do a quick rundown of the general idea here in the blog, remember though that every person is different which means what works for Bob does not work for Sally in some cases.

There are multiple metal tiers when it comes to health insurance there is bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Bronze is for people that go to the doctor 1-3 times, silver is for 3-4 times, gold 4-5 times, and platinum is for those that go to the doc 5+ times every year. Even though bronze is the lowest premium it is the highest deductible, and no we are not talking about $4,000-$5,000 deductible. I am talking about as high as $16,000 deductible, health insurance and medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcies in our country. To give you a great idea of how this can happen, I was in a motorcycle accident a few years ago.

This accident happened on the way to work and made me end up in a wheelchair for 4 months. My left kneecap was fractured and I was in need of surgery to repair the damage. The surgery full cost was $36,000 which my health insurance paid for $30,000 this still leaving me a bill of $6,000. Which if you did not know I did not budget my trip to work costing me $6,000. This is how easy it is for the health industry to send someone spiraling into debt by just choosing the wrong plan for them or one that has high deductibles and nothing to help with paying them.

Now with vision and dental insurance it is a little bit easier on the decision process. There are two types of insurance for them which is the high and the low plan, and yes that is the names of the plans. They obviously ran out of ideas or they wanted to make the process very easy to understand, mission complete on that one. As we said earlier we will say it again, remember that every person's situation is different from one another so it is a case by case basis to have the perfect plan chosen for you. If you need a person to help you walk through this process or another benefit process that you are looking into. Feel free to message me and myself or one of my colleagues can assist you. This is a major problem in our country so don't be a statistic when it comes to the decision process everyone. Thanks for checking out our blog and we look forward to seeing you next time.

Looking to see which Life insurance is best for you?

Life insurance can be such a trip for some, there are so many options one can choose from. You have whole life, term life, universal life, index universal life, variable universal life, and many others. It seems some companies just think of a name and say you know what lets make that a plan! To the normal person they will just become confused and go with the first option that their insurance person says is the best. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with trusting the professionals opinion. Actually I would love it if everyone would just listen to the professional, but please understand what you are getting yourself. Because lets be honest, the world is filled with people that are trying to take advantage of the people that do not understand what they are getting themselves into. This counts with every service and product you are thinking of, this gives the reason why sales people are supposed to be good at what they do. They just haven't been told yet........high pressure sales are a thing of the past. That is a story for another day though, myself and my company want people to understand what they are sitting down for. So lets go into that, lets say you are a single individual with no spouse or children yet. Should you still get life insurance?

The answer is yes, why would it be yes if you have no spouse and/or children. My answer will be and will always be......geee I don't know, do you want your family to have to hold a car wash so they can bury you? Let's be honest everyone even though you are no longer in this world does not mean your family will not be put through a hard time of needing to choose burial arrangements, body preparation, and so on for your remains. This is one thing that I am so tired of seeing numerous times in present day United States. Did you know that you can get life insurance for the same price as you spend on coffee for a week? Ok so now let's think of you have a spouse and children, how do you know how much insurance that you need? Use the DIME method, this will give you a better understanding of how much coverage you are needing. D for debt, I for income, M for mortgage, and E for education. Debt being how much debt do you have that your spouse will be left with if you are no longer with the living. Let's talk about this for a minute everyone, be honest with yourself. Do you really want your spouse to lose their partner in life, then have to worry about how are they going to make it by in life as well with only one income when they were so use to counting on you? This leads us into I for income, how much income would you have contributed to your family if you were still living? Now you are surely thinking to yourself........sooooooo how do I know how m
uch to leave, it could be really expensive. Easy way to choose and yes this part is a bit difficult to think about but I'm sure you will be okay. If you have children use their ages to choose how much you want to leave behind. Most parents will pay enough income until their child is of the age of eighteen. So take your annual income and the years that it will be until your child is eighteen and that is your answer for I. Now if you do not have children then you need to come to the conclusion of how many years do you want your spouse to not have to worry about the shortness of income. This gives them the proper amount of time they need so they can grieve. Now we are on M for mortgage, yes if you own a home or even if you are renting. This is the money that is set aside so your spouse can grieve and does not have to worry about losing the roof over their head. Then finally we are at the final letter of E, this is for education. Not only for your spouse and children, but it can be an education fund for your grand children and descendants after them. Not everyone puts money aside in every letter but this will give people a better understanding of how to come to the conclusion of how much coverage is best for them. Now we come to what type of life insurance should you go with..... This will be difficult if you make it that way but think about it like this. Do you want term or permanent? Term lasts for a certain amount of time, I say it is the temporary solution for the permanent problem. Now of course some people are going to say, well my term lasts forever this is what my insurance person told me. Of course it will last forever......as long as you can afford it. If you look at your life insurance policy, go to the premium page. It will have the ages lined up with the amount of premium you are paying in that year. After the "term" is complete the price will start to increase, a great example is if you have a ten year term in the eleventh year the premium will start to increase. Now there is another option it is called a return of premium. Companies think it is the coolest thing since sliced bread, and it is if you want to put money aside and not receive any interest on it what so ever. Also if you are wondering what do I sell, I am a broker and happy to say I am not captive to any specific company. This means I sell all products and do not care what you pick as long as it is the best option for you and your family. I place term as a temporary product, this means it will cover something that is not permanent like a mortgage. If you are in a financial bind and cannot afford permanent insurance as of yet, then get some term and convert it to a permanent policy within the first few years. This will give you the option of keeping the original age that you applied with the term policy with. Now remember this, there is an original age then an actual age. When some companies say you can renew your policy at any time and be guaranteed to be approved at the actual age. They are talking about the age you are, at the time of writing the new policy. So make sure they mean the original age if they are talking about you being guaranteed approval. The older you are the more expensive it will be, so that will be a night and day difference in your premium. Now with the permanent policies, yes they cost more that is why they are permanent. They also have additional "riders" you can put on each of the plans. The riders are customizations that you can install on your policy, and they range from a chronic illness rider to waiver of premium. Each rider does something different with the policy, but I will tell you I never sell a policy that does not have a chronic illness rider and accelerated death benefit attached to it. If a company tells you that these will cost you extra, you might want to check with a new company. These riders are a standard addition to most policies in present day. Which means they are free and you should not have to pay for a standard addition. There are over 300 life insurance companies in the United States so use a broker so they can find you the best option for you and your family. Also the company that is using the broker pays the broker, this means no money out of your pocket. If you have any questions feel free to post them into the comments and I will be glad to answer them for you. Thank you for reading our blog and we look forward to the next time.