Yesterday I received a letter in the mail from my
dentist. It warned me not to miss
out. I may lose some dental benefits if
they are not used by December 31. They wanted
me to "call the office today!" Needless to
say, I didn’t call the office, but I did wonder about how people think about
insurance.
Part of the problem is that people who get insurance through
an employer don’t pay the full premium.
Coverage is a benefit of employment.
If they don’t collect it all, they may feel like they’ve lost out, left
money on the table. Otherwise, if they do pay the full premium, this artificial year-end
deadline highlights the amount they could have claimed. Again, it may feel like lost money. People don’t want to feel cheated, and this
dentist is trying to take advantage of that feeling to drum up business.
Unfortunately there are two factors that offset that cheated
feeling. First, most dental insurance has
a deductible and/or co-pay for any work that’s not purely preventive. I would not be able to use up the available
money without paying something myself, plus I get to have my teeth worked
on. Neither of those prospects sounds
enjoyable. Second, if everyone used all
available benefits every year, the cost of insurance would go up. When they calculate premiums they take into
account the level of usage, the fact that some people don’t go to the
dentist as often as they should and that few use their entire allowance. This gets back to magic-money-tree thinking. Insurance companies can only
pay out money they have and they get that from us and/or our employers. It’s not just sitting there waiting to be
spent.
Finally, this way of thinking seems a little strange overall. I don’t feel bad at the end of the
year because I paid for homeowner’s insurance and my house didn’t burn down, or
because I paid for car insurance and I didn’t have a crash. I want to use most insurance only when
necessary, and then I’d rather that the need hadn’t arisen. I even do things to ensure that I didn’t need
to call on the insurance company, install smoke alarms, drive carefully, eat
right, exercise, not take unnecessary risks, etc. This keeps my personal premiums (and premiums
in general) low. Why should it be any different
for dental insurance?
Food for thought.
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