First, we cut our dental and vision insurance. This is something that can easily be re-instated but the $25 a month can help me now.

Second, I cancelled all my appointments health related or otherwise. None of my appointments were an emergency and I requested that my doctor renew my prescriptions without the annual check-up since the last 6 years have been clear of any problems. These appointments and tests run in the neighborhood of $500.

Third, I called my cable company to cancel our cable, reduce our internet speed, and reduce our phone service. I explained our situation and was surprised when they offered reduced internet costs, reduced phone costs, and added free services and free channels for a 12 month period. I would tell you how much I’m paying – but I’m afraid they’ll figure out they made a huge mistake and ‘correct’ the discount… or fire the guy who gave it to me. I would have cut out the internet and phone entirely but my husband needs internet for school purposes and job searching late at night when he gets home (free internet at the library is closed) and I’m uncomfortable without a home phone for emergencies.

Fourth, I contacted my student loan company for a deferment.

Fifth, my husband and I contacted friends and family and let them know we’d be available for odd jobs. Since unemployment doesn’t start for nearly a month after a job loss, my husband has done everything from pulling weeds to insulating walls. I have been helping a company with paperwork at night after work. We use this money for groceries and for the important bills like electric and water. At no time should you feel you are ‘too good’ for any type of job.

Sixth, we cut off all our subscriptions and memberships. If you’re like us, you may not even remember you have some of them since they are automatically billed to your credit card and you may not look at each item on your online statement. Some examples: gym memberships, club memberships, magazine and newspaper subscriptions (some automatically renew unless you cancel). Savings – $50 a month.

Seventh, we’ve been using more public transportation. It takes twice as long to get somewhere, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s far from fun, but it saves $50-$75 a month.

It’s not a lot, but each item buys us a little more time.

Some people have bad teeth.

And even still, some people have teeth that make Steve Buscemi look like a Colegate smile model.

I’m in the last category.

Oh, you can’t tell to look at me. I have a beautiful smile – but I’ve spent more on my teeth than most people spend on their first home.

Either:

A) My dentist was an elephant poacher in her previous life and she can’t rid herself of the desire to create enough pure ivory piano keys out of my teeth to furnish a grand piano… or two.

Or

B) My tooth enamel is as effective at preventing cavities as a double fudge cake is to weight loss.

I brush, I floss, and I rinse twice daily. I avoid soda and sugar. BUT… according to my dentist, some people are destined to have bad teeth.

And I am destined to pay her dental school loans.

Obviously my dental woes affect my ability to pay off debt. I recently finished paying off a $1,500 dental loan, but there is always more work to be done.

I also recently interviewed for a job with one of the most inclusive dental plans I’ve ever seen.

They reviewed the information with me at the end of the interview and I’m hoping they didn’t notice I had stars, exclamation points, and highlighted sections around the ‘Dental Benefits’ section.

Ahh. To be free of dental debt – past and future – would help a lot.

$222/visit

The first visit I had, I can understand that cost and I’m okay with that cost. My condition was evaluated and that was some real one-on-one time. The second visit, well, it was cut short for one so it was less than an hour (50 minutes). Then I spent 10 minutes on an exercise bike while the trainer sat and pedaled next to me. Then I was given an ultrasound treatment (which did feel nice for a few hours after the visit) and the trainer taped me knee (only to have it unravel by the time I went to bed). The last five minutes were spent reviewing my homework exercises. To me, it wasn’t worth the continued visits since the trainer said they would be the exact same thing.

After my insurance, each visit cost almost $65. Let’s say that I stuck with the program for the rest of the five weeks at two visits/week. That would have been $650. I knew I had to fess up to my doctor since I saw her again a little bit ago. Her response? She asked if I received some exercises to do. I told her that I did and I have been doing them and I am also trying to be more active overall. I also said I was concerned about the cost. She understood and gave one of those smiles like, “Yeah, I know they are pretty ex-pen-sive!” but she couldn’t say that LOL. But she approved.

A few changes have made a huge difference. My weekends are basically pain free now. During the week is a different story, though, since I still sit for long periods and it hurts my knees. Inactivity has taken a toll on my body and it is going to take some time to reverse it but it can be done. I am making progress, though

I also found out that the original online bill payment that my bank sent did make it to Blue Cross and it was cashed on the 12th. I really goofed with how I handled everything, because now that check will bounce on them since we put a stop on it. That could result in a fee. I tried asking the customer service rep about it and he didn’t know. I guess we’ll see.

What I should have done was let that first check go for a while longer and then cut a check from my checkbook. I got really flustered, though, during this whole thing and didn’t think too clearly. I also seem to forget that I have a savings account I can pull from. You live…you learn.

With all of the information that I have, I believe my bank did its job and sent out the payment as they should have. I believe that the delay with everything lies with Blue Cross and I will confirm that when I call next week to find out when they cashed the second bill pay check from my bank. I believe that they are a company that is not equipped to handle online bill payments. Even though all of the necessary account information is included on the check, they delay the payment processing unless you have the voucher from your bill with the payment.

Now that this is somewhat resolved, I can dig into our finances and see if we can squeeze out some money to our savings account. I still would like to get that balance increased to $4,000.

My eyes scanned that bill as quickly as it could to figure out what the hey was going on. I am supposed to be billed $400/month (roughly). Ah, I found it. I was being charged for three months. Three months! Due by July! Are they wanting me to need the health insurance?

The initial shock wore off quickly and I went straight to the phone. It turns out that their system had a glitch and “randomly sent out three month invoices to some customers.” The customer service rep went on to assure me that the only amount that will be due is a one month payment.

That seals the deal. I will never, ever, give my health insurance company my banking information to automatically withdraw payments. I am also not paying them through my bank’s online bill pay since it didn’t work too well. I am going back to doing things the old fashioned way with writing my own check, paying for a stamp and sending it off in the mail.

As for continuing to use online bill pay for everything else? I’m still on the fence with that. We only send out a few checks a month and I’m thinking of going back to the old fashioned way for all of them. I liked the convenience of online bill pay, but I really miss knowing that my checks cleared the bank. The other option is to get a new bank with a better online bill pay system. I still have to think about it some more.

What an interesting June so far. I guess it’s keeping me on my toes!

At the time, there were cheaper plans available through other insurance companies. I ended up going with Blue Cross because I’ve dealt with them in the past and have had good experiences with them. They also covered childbirth, and none of the other plans covered that unless you added an expensive rider to their policy.

While we still want to have another child, I don’t know when I’ll be ready, so perhaps it’s time to look into a cheaper health insurance policy for a while.

The one place I know to go (and it’s where I shopped before) is ehealthinsurance.com. You plug in a few bits of information about yourself and your family and you get a listing of policies that would work in your area.

I found a comparable plan for a little less than $200/month. That would reduce our health insurance costs by 50%. At first glance, it looks like there will be some reduction of benefits, but catostrophic events would be covered. Nowadays, one visit to the ER for a broken bone can eat up the deductible for many policies. As long as we have money in a savings account that can cover a yearly deductible I think we will be okay.

I haven’t applied for the new policy yet, since I haven’t had the time to really drill down and compare the two policies side by side. If we switch, I want to make sure of what we are getting into. While saving $200/month would really help our financial situation, possibly losing some health benefits is something to really think over.

We paid premium after premium for that policy. Back then, I didn’t question it too much. But now that I’ve been reading about personal finance, I think there is a better policy for us.

I started reading some articles about term versus whole life policies like this one from SmartMoney.com. The difference between the two boils down to this:

A term policy is life coverage only. On the death of the insured it pays the face amount of the policy to the named beneficiary. You can buy term for periods of one year to 30 years. Whole life insurance, on the other hand, combines a term policy with an investment component.

[Via SmartMoney.com]

With all of our debt, $25,000 wasn’t going to go very far. At this point in our life, we need a policy where you get more bang for your buck if the unspeakable happens. After looking around, I found a 10-year term life policy that only costs a few dollars more per month yet will provide $100,000 in coverage. Now that will at least wipe the debt slate clean. While it would be great to have more insurance than that, for now that is what we can afford.

In some cases, whole life may be the way to go. But after careful consideration, I set in motion the application to get term life insurance for my husband. For simplicity sake, I went through the same company that I got my life insurance from (Gerber). I sent out the payment and got the official papers so then it came time for my husband to call his whole life insurance policy.

He made the call and a few days later we received the paperwork that needed to be signed and returned. In that letter, we found out approximately how much money we will be getting by cashing out the policy…a little over $1,200. They also refund some of the premium that you paid so the total amount will be closer to $1,300. Now we are just waiting for the check.

It’s exciting that we will be getting a minor windfall. Oh, how we would have blown that on frivolous junk back then! Not anymore, though. Only just now I realized I could satisfy my LCD TV obsession with that money but I don’t even want to do that. Nope. It goes straight towards our debt and maybe a little towards our savings.

So now both my husband and I have $100,000 term life insurance policies and we are still making progress towards getting some financial security. We’re on the right track

How did I come up with $100,000?

The main thing I want taken care of is all of our debt. I want the surviving spouse to be able to live debt-free. I looked at our total debt and that comes to $85,776 (note: that amount includes the student loans for my husband and I although some of it will be forgiven because we each have our own loan).

Next I searched for the average cost of a funeral. I couldn’t seem to find any current information, but I did find the average cost for 2004: $6,500. I don’t believe that our costs would be that high, because my husband and I favor cremation and we don’t need a viewing or a fancy funeral.

Given that information, and the goodies that I learned from this MSN article, How to Plan an $800 Funeral, I am allocating a bit on the high side and using $2,500 for burial, etc.

The other cost will be any medical bills for the deceased spouse. Our health insurance policy has a maximum out-of-pocket yearly cost of $2,500. So, I want to make sure that is covered.

So far we have

Debt: $85,776
Funeral: $2,500
Health Insurance: $2,500

That brings us to almost $91,000. That will leave around $9,000 for other things. It really does go fast! I know it isn’t enough and I do want to get more in the near future. But I decided on that amount for the next year or so.

Now that I knew how much I wanted to purchase, it was time to find an insurance company. It was easy to find some companies to work with after cruising the personal finance blog-o-sphere and I also received a very nice email from a reader with some suggestions.

Here are the sites I checked out and went through the process to get a quote:

Intelliquote.com (aka Matrix Direct)
Reliaquote.com
Insure.com

The first company I received a call from (be prepared for the telephone calls!) was the one behind Insure.com. They were nice and pleasant and they took more information to schedule a time for someone to come out and do the health portion of obtaining life insurance. The next to call was Matrix Direct from Intelliquote.com. The woman there was very nice and very helpful so I decided to go ahead with the application for that one as well.

According to Matrix Direct, they can take the results of the health information for the other company for their underwriting. The fewer needle picks, the better.

All was well and it was going to be about three weeks until a portamedic could come to our house to draw blood, etc. During that time, I received quite a few calls from Matrix Direct. I heard from the one woman, who again was very nice. She even told me that if I could lose some weight before my exam, my rate would go down drastically.

Right there, I started rethinking buying term life insurance with a health exam. Maybe we should wait a little bit and work on our health to get lower rates.

Then, the calls started getting confusing. Matrix Direct would call (it was a different woman) and tell me what I needed to do with my application. Because Matrix Direct was the second company I applied with, I would have to mail my application in separately. But wait, now the woman is saying I had to give it to the portamedic.

The one thing about me is that if I start feeling a bad vibe from something, I tend to stop what I’m doing. In this case, I stopped EVERYTHING. I called the two companies and cancelled the applications. I was getting too confused and in the back of my mind I was thinking about how high the rates were for me.

Not too long after that, I miscarried and I found out how poor my health really was. I weighed more than I thought and my blood pressure is pretty high. I don’t even know if they would have insured me, and I’m not sure if a rejection by one company will hurt me in the long run. After all, there is that question about if you have been denied coverage by another life insurance company.

What was next? Trying out the no exam companies for some coverage.

I tried quite a few companies and each one said, “Sorry…we do not have a plan for you.” Since I have in my medical history that I was diagnosed with asthma and that I smoke, no one wanted to touch me. Until I came across a very familiar company that sells baby food and life insurance.

I’ve known about Gerber offering insurance on children, but after checking out their site I found out that they offer term life insurance for adults. I entered in the information, and instead of the automatic, “Sorry…” I was told that I would receive some information in the mail.

Sure enough, I received a questionaire about asthma. I filled it out and returned it and waited. They accepted my application and provided a quote. $35/month or you could receive discounts for paying every three months, six months or a year. If I paid yearly, it would only be $29/month. The same price would apply if I chose to have automatic monthly payments from my checking account or credit card.

My quote from the other companies were both over $30/month for the same amount of coverage. But how well does Gerber Life Insurance stack up according to Ambest.com (the ones who rate life insurance companies). It turns out that they rate them excellent (A).

Well, that seals it. I sent out my check and now I am covered by Gerber Life Insurance Company. Sounds sort of weird, but for a filler life insurance company it will do just fine. Next step is to get my husband covered but we will be waiting a little bit for that so we can stagger our payments a little (I’m paying in three month intervals at the moment and that comes out to a little over $32/month).

My method is a little unconventional, but given my poor health at the moment and my desire to change that around drastically within the next year, I didn’t want to take the chance of getting denied for life insurance that was exam dependant. I ended up finding the same coverage for almost the same price. Once my health improves, we will go ahead and get more coverage (the limit for Gerber is $100,000) through a different company.

I feel very good about my decision although I did not enjoy shopping for life insurance and dealing my own mortality. But you really do have to think about it and at least do something to help those that you would leave behind if the unthinkable does happen. I kept thinking that to myself the whole time to help motivate me to get through this.

We are one more step closer to getting our financial house in order. Yay!

Good News: Overall, there is no deductible and we have to pay 30% for almost all services, up to the $2,500 out of pocket maximum. That’s not too bad, and quite frankly, that’s the best individual plan I could get with some sort of maternity benefit. It’s also with a trusted insurer that I have worked with before (Blue Cross Blue Shield). It will cover 70% of the delivery costs.

Not-so-good News: The plan does not cover prenatal or postnatal care. To me, this seems very odd because prenatal care is so important during pregnancy. With my son, near the end there were many tests and ultrasounds. I developed pregnancy induced hypertension and they wanted to monitor us closely. Add to that the fact that my son was almost two weeks late and I’m sure the costs were significant. I wish I kept all of the paperwork from our care, but I didn’t.

It would be nice if I can get an idea of what to expect for costs. This is my biggest problem with medical care. If you want to know the cost of something, you cannot get a straight answer. Even if you call to find out the cost of an office visit, they give you a run around answer about how many different things factor into a visit and they cannot possibly tell you the cost beforehand. Everything else I spend money on I can shop around wisely. Healthcare is a different story and it drives me crazy.

When I had my son, everything was covered 100% through my husband’s employer’s health insurance plan. I didn’t pay anything out of pocket. This time, I will need to be vigilant and apply some of the things I have learned:

- I will ask for detailed bills and go through them with a magnifying glass if needed to make sure the charges are correct.

- I will ask if there are ways to receive a discount (like pay in cash, perhaps).

- When it comes time to get prescriptions filled, I will shop around for the best price since prescription costs can vary wildly from pharmacy to pharmacy.

The last thing I want to do is to start putting medical costs on our credit cards. I will if I absolutely have to, but I won’t do it without a fight.

I can see it now…I’m 9 months pregnant and it looks like I am about to burst and I’m sitting there with the billing department arguing over a $10.00 overcharge. I’m laughing because I can see myself doing it! LOL.

Well, I couldn’t do that. The earliest I could add him to our plan was March. I had thought about getting some short term health insurance for him because he is 5 years old and likes to jump off everything, but I didn’t. With life going on, it slipped my mind.

It didn’t even hit me until a few minutes ago that yesterday was March 1st. Our son is now on our policy. Yay!

All three of us have health insurance, we are contributing to a retirement account, we have money in a savings account, our debt is going down, and next week we will be having our exam for life insurance policies. Our financial house is slowly but surely getting the solid foundation that it needs.

We had something happen this weekend, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bummed out a little. But as I’m sitting here writing about it, I thought about actually listing what was good about what happened and what is bad. It couldn’t hurt.

But first I’ll tell you what happened. We were driving home from shopping, and our oil light went on around a turn and then went off again. We drove just a few blocks to a gas station and checked the oil. It was low so we put oil in and started back on our way home.

About halfway there, the oil light came on again and was flickering. We drove a little bit and we stopped at a gas station again. My husband checked the oil again and it was fine and also looked for leaks. Everything seemed ok.

So we left again. A little bit later, the light stopped flickering and stayed on and we could hear a tinking sound from the engine. We immediately pulled over and said that was that. We weren’t making it home by driving our car.

Now, here’s the good news:

1.) Where we pulled over had a huge shoulder free of snow to pull over onto (not the case with the entire road).

2.) The weather was unseasonably warm for this time of year and it was a beautiful day.

3.) Someone was nice enough to let a stranger in their home to use their phone to call for help.

4.) I renewed my AAA membership back in September (I was wondering back in September if we should renew it, but I did!) We saved money on the towing fees! Whew!

5.) A friend we called to see if he could pick us up was available and came out to give us a ride home. He told us that he almost didn’t have his cell phone with him when we called. Double whew!

6.) My son had the chance to see a tow truck in action close-up (he loved it and said he wants to be a tow truck driver when he grows up ).

7.) Our car had an appointment this week for the mechanic already (ironically for an oil change as well as an alignment), so we know he has the time to at least look at it soon.

8.) When no one was looking I wrote “TOW ME” on our dirty trunk while waiting for the tow truck. It felt good to make a little bit of fun at the situation.

Now, for the bad news:

1.) I don’t have a clue how much the repair will cost for this problem.

2.) It’s our only car.

As you can see, something went wrong, but many things did go right. I feel better after doing this, and appreciating the things that did go right in this situation. Perhaps when life throws you a curveball you can give this a try and really sit and think about the good things. There may be more good than bad.

So, I went to the site and signed up to receive Navigating Your Health Care for Dummies. At the worst I could get more junk mail and spam in my inbox. The site is run through Aetna, so I trusted it somewhat. So far, no new junk mail and no new spam.

I’ve skimmed through it, and the book is in the traditional form of all of the Dummies books (easy to read with a little bit of humor in there). It is a quick read and a very basic introduction to Health Care. It has 62 pages and is 8.5″ x 5.5″.

To get your free copy, just visit the Plan For Your Health website here.

My first thought was “Oh no” because they really processed our application quickly. They said it would take 4 to 6 weeks and it hasn’t been that long yet. It’s only been about two weeks since I mailed in the application.

Since Blue Cross/Blue Shield doesn’t really reject people, I wasn’t worried about it being a decline letter. I knew it was a bill. I opened the bill when we got in the house and my eyes scanned it so fast looking for the “Due Date.”

January 7, 2007

YES! I was so happy that I almost did a little dance. They were not utilizing auto pay for the first payment and I have until the new year to pay it! That is excellent news because we have a few more paychecks before the due date to have the money ready for it and we will not be as squeezed for cash.

While I tried not to worry about it too much, it was still a relief to now know when that bill was due. Sometimes, the unknown really bothers me since I am very much a planner type of person.

There was a little bit of bad news with the bill, though. The cost of the insurance per month was higher than what ehealthinsurance.com quoted me. Instead of around $330/month it is a little over $350/month. With looking at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s website…the price did go up since earlier this month. After my husband and I turn 30 early next year, we are looking at $400/month to cover the both of us.

I’m not going to focus on the negative which is the escalating costs of healthcare. I am going to focus on the positive that we will be able to pay this bill and when the time comes we will be able to pay future bills. As of December 1st, we now have health insurance after being without it since 2001. We now will have some peace of mind knowing that we will not be destroyed financially if something health-related should happen to one of us.

Next step is to finalize life insurance and look into disability insurance. Which, by the way, makingourway did a nice post on disability insurance not too long ago if you are interested.

With that said, here’s my thoughts…

The beginning of Health Care on Less Than You Think starts off with some sobering stories of individuals that have had their financial life rocked by medical costs. Even more surprising is the number of those people that HAD health insurance. Obtaining health insurance has been a priority of mine, but I have been dragging my feet with doing it. After reading what some of those people have paid for medical procedures – it really sunk in that one problem could easily rack up over $5,000 in medical bills. Needless to say, my application is in process as I announced yesterday.

Reading further, Mr. Brock details exactly how much extra an uninsured person has to pay for the same services that an insured person receives. I knew that happened, and feel that it is VERY unfair to charge those without health insurance a different price. I just didn’t know how much more. Can you believe that an uninsured person would have to pay a bill of $30,000 when an insured person (and their insurance company) would be paying $7,000?

Mr. Brock gives great advice on how to try to save money if you are uninsured, such as negotiating and auditing your medical care bills. He also explains those big words you find associated with health insurance policies. Finally, I really understand how coinsurance, deductible and out of pocket maximums work!

I’ve also finally learned about Health Savings Accounts (HSA’s). An entire chapter is decidated to helping the reader understand how they work and how they can be very advantageous or disadvantageous. After reading that chapter, I quickly looked up available HSA plans on ehealthinsurance.com. Unfortunately, none of them covered pregnancy and all of them required medical records. At this time, I feel confident saying that a HSA plan is not for us.

Overall, this book made me feel like a confident shopper when it came to finally choosing a plan for our family. I also feel more confident knowing some things that I can do to help save money when it comes to health care and prescription drugs. Knowing what I know now, I feel that Health Care on Less Than You Think (amazon referral link) will end up saving us money in the future.

Just a note, some things I did already know about – such as asking for an itemized hospital bill and checking for any mistakes. There will probaby be some things you may have heard about in this book as well. But, if you are fairly new to how health insurance works and want to learn more, this is an easy-to-read and understand book. I particulary enjoyed the real-life examples that Mr. Brock detailed throughout the book.

To conclude, this book was very helpful to me since our health care was a big decision I was facing. I am glad I was given the opportunity to read it.

I have looked at that site many times before, but I was never very confident with choosing a single plan. There’s the matter of coinsurance, deductibles, lifetime maximums….it was very overwhelming. Since we do not have employer sponsored health insurance, we have the ability to pick a plan from many different companies. That can be overwhelming as well.

There’s a book that really helped me gain some confidence with my decision, and I’ll have a review for that probably tomorrow. But I just couldn’t wait to share the news with everyone that a decision has been made and the first application has been submitted (especially since there are some out there who have been waiting for us to get health insurance ).

We decided to go with the only plan available that had maternity benefits. There may or may not be an addition to our family in the future – but we want to be prepared and covered in the event that we decide to add to our family. The insurance is also a very trusted company in our family – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Back in the day, we had an employer-sponsored Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan policy and we never had a problem with them.

The plan we are applying for has no dedictible and it has 30% coinsurance. What that means is that we will have to pay 30% of all services up to our out-of-pocket yearly maximum, which is $2,500 for an individual / $5,000 for the family. After hearing a few stories of what some relatively simple procedures can cost – having to pay up to $5,000 isn’t that bad.

An individual plan does come with a hefty price. Until we receive the official application in the mail to sign and remit with 2-month’s payment (the next step), we will not know the exact price. Right now, we just did a pre-application. Since health insurance policy prices change often, who knows exactly what it will be. The price quoted by ehealthinsurance.com was around $330/month. That will run about $4,000/year.

Another reason we decided to go with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is that they do not require medical records and they have an unlimited lifetime benefit.

For us, at this point in our lives, I feel confident that this policy is the best one for our family. I will try to review our policy at least yearly and see if any other policies arise that would be better suited for us. Perhaps we can go with a cheaper policy.

To see the complete breakdown, you can see my NetWorthIQ profile here.

October was the first month without a car payment, and that helped with the overall picture for October. Unfortunately, I will not be able to snowball that payment into the rest of our debt. We will be using that $250/month to go towards obtaining health insurance for me and my family.

I am currently reading Health Care on Less Than You Think (amazon referral link) by Fred Brock and I will have a review shortly on the book. The beginning chapters are sobering, giving examples of individuals that have been devistated financially by medical problems. I know one medical problem can easily undo all of the progress we’ve made reducing debt, and reading those stories really hit home.

That will be my weekend – finishing reading that book and figuring out what health insurance company to go with. Stay tuned to hear more about the book or how I am going about finding decent health insurance.

One thing that helps keep me going are the great emails I have received from others sharing their stories. I see people making a difference in their financial life, and I’m not sure how else to say it…it’s just awesome.

Here’s two emails I received from one reader (and just so everyone knows, I do not share emails on here unless you give me permission to do so).

“I wanted to share with you the good news that I got two of my higher interest rates reduced by calling the company. One card I have had since 1992 and after talking to a customer service rep. he suggested in switching my card to a reward type card. I did have to write to Discover which took a little more time.”

That right there is great news! It never hurts to try to contact your credit cards to see if they will lower the rates. And in this case – it worked!

A few days later I received this email…

“Again, I have good news to share. In June, in an attempt to have our auto insurance reviewed to reduce the rates, I called my agent. Neither my husband or I have had any tickets and I haven’t had an auto claim in 9 years. Well, my agent said that she would check into it; review my credit etc and if anything could be done she would let me know. I didn’t hear from her before my policy renewed in July. I received a call on my home recorder to call my agent on Tuesday. When I returned the call on Wednesday I was told that my policy is being rewritten which will save me $200 every six months; $400 annual. I had actually given up and thought I’d try again next year. This news made my day.”

I haven’t called my insurance company in quite a while. After hearing this, I’m tempted to give them a call and just ask. It doesn’t hurt to try, and this reader is now saving $400/year by just giving it a shot! That’s A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!! Way to go!!!!

Thank you everyone for your emails and for sharing things with me

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has a plan called Young Adult Blue. For less than $50/month you can have health insurance so “an illness or injury doesn’t result in catastrophic medical bills” (quoted from their site).

Looking back, we haven’t had medical problems so I could say that we saved money by not obtaining health insurance. Sure, I can say that in hindsight. But right now I know if something happened, all of the work we’ve been doing with debt reduction would be gone. We’d have to probably pay hospital bills with our credit card and it would be horrible.

You are kicked out of this plan when you are 31 years of age. So, technically my husband or I could be on this plan for a little over a year. So we may have another option with this plan.

I don’t know about everyone else, but shopping for health insurance makes my head spin.

I bought it last year before my son and I took a 1,000+ mile trip by ourselves. He was 3 at the time, and the last thing I wanted to do is have to keep him calm and entertained in the event of a flat tire on a busy highway. I wanted the peace of mind that we could wait in our car until someone arrived.  The trip was also the reason we caved in and finally purchased a cellphone.

To me, the $48 for the year was worth it for that one trip. It saved me from worrying the whole drive. Now, I haven’t used it at all and my renewal is coming up in a few months.  I’m not so sure that I will renew it, but I have a feeling I will. That’s the thing with insurance. You have it and you may need to use it, but there is no guarantee that it will pay for itself over time.

I could try to get discounts at places, but if we need lodging we tend to stay at mom and pop hotels (cheaper and more character) and where we live no restaurants or entertainment places accept the card for a discount.

So really…peace of mind for traveling is all that we have it for. I guess it could come in handy in case my engine goes kaput in lieu of my car’s recent recall (which I still haven’t received official notice for).

In a few months I will need to make my final decision on whether $48/year is worth having it in case we need it.  So far I am thinking it is.

Any thoughts?

I was surprised to see that you can obtain policies through Aflac as an individual! Last I knew you needed to have an employer participating to obtain a policy. I spoke with the representative this week and and received a few quotes on Term Life Insurance, Accident Insurance and Dental Insurance. Unfortunately, Vision is not available to individuals and that was one policy I was interested in (remember how my frugal glasses broke? I still haven’t bought new glasses yet).

The price for Dental seemed pretty high for us. My husband has teeth of steel and has never had a cavity in his life. My teeth haven’t been so fortunate and I’ve lost two molars since the birth of my son (I seem to remember hearing about the women in my family having problems with their teeth after pregnancy). If the insurance would help cover the cost of replacing my lost teeth I would be inclined to sign up. But the benefit was very low.

As for the accident insurance, that could be a good thing to obtain. But, most of it requires that you see a doctor for your injuries and we tend to take care of our own injuries unless they seem really serious. There’s one time I fell down my stairs and I thought for sure I broke something. It hurt so bad that it was the first and only time I smoked a cigarette in my house. If I had health insurance, I probably would have gone to the emergency room that night and who knows what tests and remedies I would have been given. In that case, Aflac probably would have been great to have. But since we do not have insurance, I toughed it out. I sure hurt for the next few days but I healed and had the biggest, blackest bruise I ever saw in my life!

The term life insurance was reasonably-priced to another quote I received through AAA Michigan. A big benefit of Aflac Life Insurance is that there is no health exam or blood test, just some questions. I am concerned that having an insurance company check our overall health could uncover something that could hinder obtaining health insurance (not sure if that’s true – but it’s a concern of mine).

One thing to note is that while Aflac does offer some policies to individuals, you will pay more than if your employer offered it. I learned a lot about the Aflac policies and if I had more money to spend per month and if I was a little older, I may be more inclined to purchase other policies besides term life insurance. Right now, our money has to be spent wisely and strategically used for things that help protect us in the event of something catastrophic happening. And that puts life insurance and health insurance at the top of the list of things to get.

I still have to read through all of the fine print, but I thought I would write about the individual policies in case anyone was thinking about Aflac but their employer doesn’t offer it.  This is by no means a recommendation about Aflac since I have yet to purchase their services. 

Here’s my dilemma, I need insurance without a physical or a blood test. I don’t have health insurance and I wouldn’t want anything being uncovered. My worry is then if there is something wrong with my husband or me it could be considered a pre-existing condition when we can get health insurance. Perhaps that would never happen – but so far I haven’t been able to find solid documentation otherwise. A lot of the “no physical” places almost seem like a scam (although I know they probably aren’t) but I am overly cautious.

Anyone out there purchase term life insurance with no physical and care to comment on the company (or even email it to me?). I could use a few thoughts from someone who has purchased from these companies before.

Thanks!!!

I bet by the title of my post you already know my answer. I don’t have one. I don’t have life insurance either (but my husband has a small policy on him thanks to his parents long ago).

Both things I better get cracking on and get done. I think the biggest reason I have dragged my feet was because of the mortality issue. I hate thinking about death in all regards. I’m not done with what I have to do here on Earth just yet. But if the unthinkable happens, I don’t want my husband and son drowning in debt.

That leads to the next dilemma. How much life insurance to get?

I don’t want to go too high, because costs need to be kept low at the moment. I think $100,000 policies (at least) should be taken out on each of us so at least the other spouse can try to get their life back together with no debt.

Gosh, this is so depressing to even think about. But I guess it’s a fact of life that has to be done. I don’t want my son paying for mistakes that I made if I have the ability to avoid them. And I don’t want the court deciding who should raise him.

With that said – writing up a will and shopping for life insurance is my goal for the next week. This is too important of a matter to let keep sliding by. A thanks to It’s Just Money for bringing the topic up.