Rethink Your Health Insurance with Open Enrollment Season
This post is sponsored by Aflac. I was compensated for writing it, but all opinions are 100-percent mine. |
| Fall is in the air. And on the ground! |
Fall signifies lots of things: the end of super short shorts, pumpkin spice latte’s and the chance to wear adorable outfits. It also means that open enrollment for health insurance can be taken advantage of and adjust their plans to meet their current health care needs.
I’ll admit that I when I first started the process many years ago I just closed my eyes, dropped a finger and that was the plan I stuck with. I never really got sick, as a woman my basic needs were always covered and I just didn’t understand--or was just too young to think I needed to care. Plus at the time I was in my early 20‘s, single and still living at home wheres the majority of my coworkers were 35+, had families and illnesses.The age and lifestyle gap made it really difficult for anyone to guide me through the process and everyone was hesitant to pick a plan for me (even though I begged a few) because they didn’t understand my needs.
Now that I’m a bit older and want to be responsible in all aspects of my life I’ve started paying attention to things like health care and ask as many questions as possible so that I know I’m choosing the right one. In 2014, Aflac conducted a survey and found that many workers did very little research in terms of their insurance options and ended up with inadequate health care. I totally would have fallen into that category and am so glad that I avoided anything major throughout the years that I blindly picked a plan.
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| Enjoying the sights of Maine |
The last 3 months or so have been filled with traveling but not every trip has been relaxing. One trip was in a tropical location, the other was jut heading back home to relax but two of them were filled with adventure: hiking, whale watching and spending alto of time n slippery rocks so that in itself could have been a recipe for disaster.
I’ve been unlucky enough to fall victim to the signs of aging-or at least, that’s how I sell things to myself. I’ve been in the ER 5 times in the last eight months alone and if I didn’t have adequate health insurance the bills for those, and subsequent medications, would have been through the roof. Even with my insurance though, I still had to pay almost $3,000 out of pocket which wasn’t easy. I had just moved, I had 4 trips planned (nothing gets in the way of my trips) and I didn’t have that much of a cushion for everyday expenses, let alone medical emergencies.
There are a few types of supplemental insurance that Aflac offers but the ones that speak more to me are Accident and Disability. I’m not accident prone but accidents do happen and it would be a shame for me to have lose out on income completely for something that happened while I was either having tons of fun on an adventure or just walking down the street at the wrong time. The Disability Insurance is great because workers’ comp only covers injuries that happen on-the-job and with so little paid time off of work, I can’t afford to have an injury happen out of the office that will leave me unable to work for a week or possibly more.
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| London would be riddled with accidents if not for these signs! |
Nowadays, with companies cutting back on their expenses health insurance is usually the first thing to be affected so we need to make sure we’re prepared for anything that comes our way and Aflac is a great place to start especially now that it’s open enrollment season.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
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