Affordable Dental Plans
It is often the case that when talking about health insurance, I am asked about dental insurance. Traditionally, excellent dental plans could be found in the over 10 employee group market, but plans were not available that I wanted to recommend to the smaller group market or individuals/families.
Why? Because the plans differed by size. Plans available to over 10 employees were benefit rich due to the ability to garner premium in sufficient quanity to deliver rich benefits. But when an individual purchases dental insurance, it is assumed they intend to use it. To get the rich benefits (in the over 10 employee market) its known that some will not use it. That is how an individual, in an emplyee group, could benefit from a richer plan. That is how insurance works. But all of this goes out the window if its just you or me wanting a plan. Therefore, I rarely showed dental plans. I just didn’t feel good about recommending a plan that cost $50 to $70 per month yet delivered relatively low benefits. But now I am able to recommend three Dental Discount Plans. They are NOT insurance. They are, as the name implies, discount plans.
This means that dentists have joined a network and if you have the services of that network, you get a reduced rate on dental services. But here’s the really great thing: the disount is often close to what an insured dental plan paid. This differs widely, but you get the idea. Under these discount plans … no one pays it. You simply pay what the reduced rate is … which as I’ve stated often approximates what you would pay if you had an insured dental plan!
The cost is low. I offer three plans, none of them more than $200 per YEAR per FAMILY (less for individuals).
You can check which dentists are on the plans, simply by entering your zip code.
How To Sign Up For A Dental Discount Plan
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Click on Dental
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If you’d like to check for providers, enter your zip code. If not, go to step 3.
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Click on Join Now
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Choose Plan
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Follow Links to Purchase
Call me if I can answer any questions or guide you through the process.
Pre-Planning … not something to be avoided.
Planning for things we’d sooner avoid, is never a job anyone finds time to undertake. I personally do not like to file papers. Of course, I am awash in papers, and they don’t file themselves. So typically, I will let them pile up until I “dig in” and then I swear I’ll never do that again, again.
Is there anything we’d like to avoid more than death? I don’t think so. And so the idea of planning for one’s funeral, whereas intellectually we may think it a good idea, … we just have a hard time “finding the time”.
This is why I offer a simple way to do this. It can be done on paper, or on the internet (where it is filed for reference by any funeral home). And its a free service … well “free” except for your time.
Why is this such a good idea to do this?
- It frees ones family from making difficult decisions at a time of grief. And therefore, it generally saves money.
- It uncovers “funding vehicles”. Either cash that is set aside, or life insurance. And where such is not available, it allows a person to plan … often at a very low cost … to fund this event and not create economic hardship at the same time as emotional distress.
- And it will give you a sense of relief, once done, that is priceless.
Give me a call or email me and I will explain how simple it really is.
Why Insurers are taking TARP funds … and how I view it.
If an insurance company is accepting TARP funds it probably means two things; 1) they went out and bought a bank somewhere so they could get in on “the deal” and 2) they mishandled their annuity portfolio. In other words, they guessed wrong. Just consider all the companies who have NOT done this.
Insurance has long been steady, reliable, solid … you know, solid like a rock. But companies who played fast and loose with their clients money and got caught in the problems of mortgages and Wall Street, failed to conduct business as its been conducted for many decades.
There are many factors that I look for when determining who to recommend to my clients. Accessibility to me, the agent is one very important thing, and another is the judgment of the executives running the companies.
It used to be that I could call most insurance companies and talk to the ones in charge. I could get a feel for them. Who they are, how they reason, etc. In many cases I could have them come to me and meet me for lunch. But those days are mostly gone, with layers and layers of management, whom can never be found to answer the phone. As an agent, I am left with judging the companies by how they present themselves and the results of decisions made. It is something I spend a lot of time researching.
I don’t believe that anyone can know for sure, anything today. But you can trust me to have put forth considerable effort and to have used the skill and knowledge I have to help you, my client. And with this in mind, I will not be recommending any insurer who went out and bought a bank so they could get in on TARP funds. Just strikes me as not the type of company who I want to recommend to my client as being solid and displaying integrity to long standing and proved sound principles of insurance.
Options for college planning.
In these economic times, what should a parent do to plan for their child’s college costs? One solid planning tool and, in my opinion, one of the safest options is an old fashioned “whole life” plan.
Whole life insurance?
That’s kind of expensive, isn’t it?
If a person needs short term life insurance in large amounts, well, yes it is expensive. But you are looking for a means of funding college tuition, so you may find whole life insurance expense to be very reasonable and … once again, safe.
The key is maximizing the cash value while at the same time providing insurance on the breadwinner (that’s the parent) to assure its completion. That is to say, should the parent die, the life insurance proceeds helps to pay for the college tuition and if the parent lives, the cash value of the policy helps pay the college tuition when the time comes for your offspring to leave for college.
The concept is pretty simple! I know of no other concept that matches this one for safety and certainty. The outcome is insured, what a person plans for is what will happen – essentially eliminating the element of risk associated with many other options for college planning. This does not mean other plans do not have their place, but purchasing a good whole life insurance plan is, to my way of thinking, the easiest and safest way to get what you want;
and for your child, that means a good start on meeting their future college tuition costs.
May I show you how this will work for you?
Will health care reform lower your take home pay?
Long a cherished principle of the tax code in the United States is the concept that employee benefits are not taxed. In other words, the employer received a tax deduction but the employee was not taxed on the premiums paid for health insurance. It was almost sacred. It was not something to be toyed with.
As health insurance premiums have gone up, this almost sacred principle became more and more important. Imagine if you had to pay taxes on the premiums paid for your health insurance at work? What would this mean for you? An increase in your “wages” and a marked decrease in your take home pay. Those with families would be hardest hit. With insurance premiums often being between $8,000 to $16,000, or even more, … what is your tax bracket?
If your tax bracket is $28%, and your employer is paying out $16,000 per year for your premiums, it means that you will pay additional taxes of about $100 per week.
So let me see if I have this right. Health insurance premiums have gone up at an alarming rate. We are not going to do anything that anyone has demonstrated will solve the underlying problems causing that inflation. I know! Let’s reduce the amount of money people have. That should fix it.
What do you think?
