What It Covers
Supplemental insurance is additional insurance coverage, the purpose of which is to cover medical and other expenses that your primary health insurance does not cover. Many supplemental insurance policies cover lost income if you are unable to work while recovering from illness or injury. The cash benefits that you receive during this time can help to pay for living expenses. In this case, choosing supplemental insurance coverage is particularly important if you are self-employed and have a family. Supplemental insurance also often covers the deductibles and co-payments associated with regular health insurance.
Cash Benefits
Individuals who are at high risk for accidents or serious illness can benefit from a supplemental insurance policy. There are policies available, which would pay you or your family a cash benefit in the event of an accident or disability. Keep in mind, however, that you or your family only will be eligible for payment if injury or death is a direct result of a type of accident specified on the policy. In the case of injury, amount of payment often depends on the seriousness of the injury.
Other Reasons to Buy Supplemental Insurance
Another type of supplemental health insurance policy includes hospital indemnity, which pays a cash benefit directly to the insured, or his or her beneficiary, upon hospitalization. In addition, disease or condition specific policies offer the insured a cash benefit if the individual is diagnosed with a particular disease. Payment is intended to help defray the high medical costs and mounting out-of-pocket expenses usually associated with critical, debilitating, or life-threatening illness.
Covering the Gap in Medicare
The purchase of supplemental insurance policies is common among Medicare recipients, who are looking for assistance to help pay for those expenses not covered by traditional Medicare. In particular, long-term care insurance is becoming more important to seniors who may require home health care, assisted living, or skilled nursing care at some point in the future. Investing in this kind of insurance policy will help to cover the costs should the need for these services arise.
Compensating for Loss of Work
While the cost of no health insurance policy comes cheaply these days, there are practical reasons to consider purchasing supplemental insurance. Although a regular insurance policy may cover the majority of medical expenses related to an illness or injury, these policies do not cover the expenses resulting from the loss of work during recovery, placing a family's financial security at risk. pay the bills quickly becomes a major issue if you unexpectedly are injured or become ill. The fact is that lost time from work and the resulting loss of income is a leading cause of bankruptcy among American families today.
Additional Benefits Offered
In many cases, the medical treatments for serious or acute illness may not be covered entirely under a person's primary health insurance plan. To help pay these costs, some supplemental insurance policies offer a lump sum benefit while others may base payments per day, week or month. More supplemental plans also now provide fixed benefits for preventative medical care.
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