I’ll be upfront and honest, I am certainly no expert on insurance but I would like to share my personal experiences, especially with the Obama medical law that each of us must have insurance or risk getting fined. Not having insurance has never been an option for my home, my husband is diabetic and his medications run about $300 – $400 per month without it. Taking insurance into consideration as part of a budget is something that is more in the background for a lot of us, as it simply comes out of our paychecks automatically and we simply see what we get and go from there.
However insurance is something that perhaps we should consider. Especially if the rates begin going up, or your company begins switching companies. Costs change and that of course affects what you bring home. But what about when you change jobs? Depending on your line of work, you may have to wait 90 days before you get coverage again. If you suddenly become unemployed you may consider using COBRA while you find another job. COBRA allows you to pay for your current insurance out of your own pocket without any employer contributions, in my experience this has been a bit expensive and far outside my budget. However upon leaving your job, you should get a packet from your insurance company giving you your COBRA options.
If you have a significant other and know you’re going to be leaving your job, you may consider using a qualifying event to switch over your insurance, or add on a secondary insurance. For us, we used the birth of our daughter to add both myself and our daughter to my husbands insurance. My husband’s work provides two insurance options a PPO and an HSA. Each is basically for Preferred Providers (where your insurance has a network in which you are allowed to go to) and then a Health Savings Account – Basically a savings account for medical expenses!
We went the HSA account route and have actually found this route to be preferable for us as all of our medical expenses are taken from the HSA rather than our own checking account – Even with each months insurance premiums being added to the account. What we were also excited to learn is that this account is also “Portable” which means if/when my husband leaves his current place of work, the HSA account will follow him.
Long story short, even though your budget may focus purely on what you take home, insurance and even taxes are going to play a factor in what you bring home and your budget needs to be adjusted accordingly and not just when your costs go up, if your costs go down and you find yourself with additional funds, use them wisely. Insurance can be confusing – for me at least! – So do as much research as you can so you know exactly what you’re getting and at what cost. With different levels of coverage available you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the most for your money.
