[1]Last week, I gave an overview of the special health policies [2] category. These policies are optional, and some experts advise against carrying them.
I am not an expert, but I research our options before committing our family dollars to an insurance premium.
In finding policies that fit our family’s needs and budget, we apply and place the documents within this special health policies category.
The first set of documents in our special health policies slot is paperwork for our Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy.
Defined
Our Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy provides a single cash benefit upon the first diagnosis of a covered critical illness or condition (as defined in the policy). We can use our benefit any way our family needs, and the benefit amount is paid in full even if treatment costs are less than the benefit.
The policy we hold covers our entire family. If any one of the 5 of us receives a diagnosis of a covered condition (e.g., heart attack, stroke, invasive cancer, kidney failure, etc.), then this policy will pay the full lump sum for us to use for income replacement, medical treatment, child care, transportation, or any way we need.
Though this policy is not a necessity, we choose to protect our family with this group policy which almost pays for itself with the health screening benefit.
Benefits
Our policy carries a health screening benefit which pays up to $100 for the cost of a screening test per person per calendar year. Since our family has annual physical exams each year, this benefit reimburses our family a total of $500 for the year. (I shared in this post the details of this benefit. [3])
With this benefit and the added protection to choose experimental or out-of-network medical treatment should one of us get seriously ill makes this Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy worth our hard-earned dollars.
Documents
For this policy, I keep the following documents in this ninth file opening [2] of our insurance file box [4]:
1. Summary Page
This one-paged document [5] holds vital information about this policy.
2. Policy
3. Endorsement
These documents explain changes made to the original policy (e.g., adding a child, increasing our coverage, upgrading a rider, etc.).
4. Correspondence
Copies of my submissions for the health screening benefit and the checks received and the reviews of our current coverage makeup the correspondence part of this policy.
All these documents are paper clipped together and housed in this seventh category [2] of our insurance documents.
If a cancer policy is an option and you have heard that this type of policy is not worth the annual premium, then research. In using time wisely, I weighed the cost of the premiums with the benefits available. Our policy is worth every cent we pay, but not all policies are equal.
When you do the research you might find your policy does not have these benefits. If the policy does not fit with your family’s needs, then don’t waste your money. However, don’t overlook a great option because someone lumped all the cancer policies together and stamped “refuse” on the top.
As you continue working through your piles of paperwork, keep organizing and labeling your categories for quick access in the future. Happy organizing!
Question: Do you read your insurance policies from front to back?