You may or may not know that I have worked in Human Resources (HR) for the past 15 years as an HR Executive. In my past experience I have had the opportunity to learn more than my fair share about insurance and supplemental insurance, including AFLAC. Every year at open enrollment it was my job to enlighten our employees as to the benefits of AFLAC and how supplemental insurance works. Fortunately for me (or perhaps unfortunately) I have had a lot of experience with AFLAC in my own life as we have had both and Accident and Hospitalization Policy for nearly 10 years. Here is some of the information I used to share with my employees. I hope it will help you realize the importance of supplemental insurance as the annual open enrollment season approaches.
What is open enrollment?
Once a year your employer (or whoever you have your insurance policies through) will have an open enrollment period. During this time you can freely make changes to your insurance policies without having to prove you have a “qualifying event” (such as birth of child, divorce, marriage, etc.). This is also the time when you can sign up for supplemental insurance. For the majority of companies open enrollment takes place at the end of the calendar year, but it can be different for different companies.
What is supplemental insurance?
Supplemental insurance is insurance that supplements your medical/dental policies. For instance, the AFLAC accident policy (all policies differ) I have protects me and my family if we have an accident. Our regular health insurance covers the doctor, labs, hospital, and other related expenses whereas the money paid out by AFLAC is paid directly to us for us to use at our discretion. The money we receive is based on various things such as did we get an MRI because of the accident? If so we get paid a lump sum (our policy was $500) for the xray. We get paid an X-amount of dollars for stitches, staples, surgery, days spent in the hospital, and other types of things related to the accident.
Our AFLAC Story
Five years ago my husband was playing hide-n-seek with my son and accidentally hit his head on the arch way. He went to the ER, had a CT scan, and 8 or 9 staples put in his head. He had to miss 3 days of work and we had a $100 co-pay for the ER visit. Our AFLAC policy paid US over $2,500 and we used that money to cover all our co-pays and had a good bit left over for ourselves. Last year I had a hysterectomy that landed me in the hospital for four days. My health insurance covered my stay and because I had a Hospitalization policy with AFLAC I got a check for nearly $3,500. It was a lifesaver because while I was out having my surgery my employer illegally terminated me and I was able to have a bit of money to help us until we got on our feet.
AFLAC is a very affordable policy and for many it is also a tax break (see your accountant for more information). We still have both our policies and I wouldn’t change that for anything. I know that if something happens, we are covered.
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Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Aflac and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.
I know alot of people that have AFLAC and they love it. It is great.
Enrollment day is one our we must prepare it because, when that day comes and you dont have money you dont know what are you doing..