High or low deductibles – What’s best?

High deductible plans are more cost-effective, so they are a better option if you are a pretty healthy person, or younger. I am in my early 70s, and have not been in a hospital much over that time.

For short-term plans for a short-term missions trip or volunteer project of maybe two weeks or two months duration, the cost difference between a $250 deductible and a $500 deductible will not be very much. If you need to use the insurance overseas, I can almost guarantee you the policy will not be $250 more! It might only be $10 more. So check a couple different deductibles using the orange “Get a Quote” buttons that link to the plan you are interested in. You might also want to check a $0 deductible. Realize these out-of-pocket costs may need to be reimbursed if the carrier does not have a prior agreement in place to pay the hospital or doctor directly. We have plans that are better at this with more prior agreements in place. If that is a concern (paying up front and getting reimbursed), please call us for advice on which plans/carriers have better agreements in place in the area you are traveling to.

For long-term (over one year) plans, if the difference in the premium between a $500 and $5,000 deductible was only $100 (and usually it is more), a $5,000 deductible would have saved me $36,000 over that 30-year period. That money could have been put in a personal medical savings account in order to meet a deductible if I ever needed surgery: If surgery was not needed, I would have a substantial savings account. And this is only calculating the premium I would have saved on my own personal insurance. I have not calculated in the savings for my whole family. And you have the benefit of liquid capital as well as the interest income on $36,000. If surgery was needed, I would still have been protected from the cost of a major medical catastrophe, e.g., a major operation, and hopefully still have that money I saved to pay my high(er) deductible.

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