Health & Dental Insurance
Health is Wealth – Guard It
Health is Wealth – Guard It
Many health care expenses (prescription drugs, dental care, emergency care, etc.), whether predictable or not, can significantly drain cash flow and savings, leaving one without an adequate emergency fund and impairing the ability to save adequately for retirement. Fortunately, there are many avenues available for persons to acquire extended health insurance, to at least partially, or fully, fund these expenses and relieve individuals of their financial stress.
The types of coverage available under individual medical care plans cover most of the medical and related services required by insureds:
Because most of the provincial health care plans do not offer coverage for dental fees and appliances, dental care is often a mainstay of any extended health insurance plan.
Benefits provided under an individual dental plan fall into one of two categories: Routine maintenance and Major restorative services.
Major dental covers major restorations or replacement of missing teeth, or the reconstruction of teeth where basic restorative methods cannot be used satisfactorily (includes crowns, bridges and dentures).
Long-term care coverage is most often acquired as a stand-alone policy, but can also often be offered as an optional rider on life insurance and critical illness insurance contracts. The long-term care rider is added, if at all, at time of application of the base contract and will be subject to separate medical and financial underwriting. It could be that the prospective life to be insured could qualify for the life or critical illness coverage, but not for the long-term care rider. The rider typically carries its own premium in addition to the premium for the underlying policy.
Long-term care contracts are NOT “disability insurance” in the classic sense; they do not provide income replacement in the event that the insured is unable to engage in gainful employment due to injury or illness. Rather, Long-term care plans are structured to provide a daily maximum benefit to cover the costs of professional health care services for insured individuals who, due to illness, injury or aging, are no longer able to function independently.
Long-term care benefits can be paid directly to the service provider like a nursing home (indemnity model) or, more often in the case of home care, to compensate the patient for expenses already paid for out of pocket (reimbursement model).
Long-term\ care isn’t just about a stay in a nursing home. The health care community offers a wide range of public and private services, each progressively more comprehensive. The most common private/public services available are:
“A funeral policy is designed to pay a prompt, tax-free free lump sum on the death of a loved one to alleviate the sudden financial burden caused by funeral costs,”
Funeral policies pay out much faster than life insurance policies. They'll go towards paying immediate funeral expenses while the estate is being wound up, so your family can avoid shouldering significant debt from a funeral.