Is Dental Insurance Worth It?
June 18, 2008 – 6:14 am
No. Not to me at least. After all, what is the purpose of insurance anyway? To me, insurance is a product that limits risk and potential liability should something undesirable occur. Car insurance can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars, so paying out a couple thousand a year for that protection seems worthwhile. Statistics would also prove out that you’re somewhat likely to get in a car accident of some kind several times during your life.
But does your mouth need that kind of coverage? Are you likely to experience an event that you cannot pay for yourself? I don’t think so. My wife needed her wisdom teeth removed a year ago, and it would have cost $1200 without insurance. Clearly this is not pocket change, but it’s not like having to rebuild a house after a tornado.
How much does your dental insurance cover? Insurance is supposed to “cover” you in the event that something unexpected occurs. How much coverage does it provide though? My old insurance had an annual (per person) limit of $1000. Wow. Not much.
And how much would I need to pay for coverage? My coverage cost $325/person per year. That included 100% coverage on in-network cleanings and 80% on most other stuff. I get one cleaning a year, and it costs ~$100. It may be closer to $50 because I’ve talked my dentist into offering the same price as she charges the insurers. It saves her from having to file the paperwork and wait for payment, so all things considered it’s better for her if I pay her the agreed upon rate directly.
Even my dentist said that having dental insurance isn’t worth it due to the low coverage amount. You should also consider that most dental work will last for years, and that the cost for dental work would rarely fall outside the range of $500 to $2000 (according to my dentist).
When should you consider dental insurance? It’s just my opinion here, so please make your own decision. I would only consider dental insurance if I couldn’t self-insure, or if I had a large family and/or frequent dental needs. It may have a better payback (or payout) if I had kids who needed orthodontics or braces. For regular cleanings for adults though, I think it would be better to save the premiums in a separate account and then use those funds as your ‘dental emergency fund’ (or ‘medical emergency fund’).
An alternative you might consider for single adults would be to get insurance every other year. That way you could get two cleanings, one in January and one in December, and could use the insurance to take care of any other issues like annual x-rays, etc.
Image Credit: Yomi Yomi
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4 Responses to “Is Dental Insurance Worth It?”
I definitely agree with your arguement about not really needing dental insurance, though this arguement would not be reasonable with many other types of insurance.
My wife is an insurance nut so we pay like $13 per person per month for dental. Which is pretty reasonable.
By
Big Game (Who am I?) on Jun 18, 2008
I kinda have to agree. Unfortunately I have lots of English relatives and they all have terrible, terrible teeth so I figure some day the tooth fairy will drop that gum-disease bomb on me. My Mom also put the fear into me. She had some gum thing and no insurance, cost her a bazillion dollars. My solution, so far, is to pay the insurance premium and yet NOT go to the dentist — wait, that’s totally stupid!! I better go get cleaned.
By
Bonnie Story (Who am I?) on Jun 19, 2008
When a dentist quote you a price for dental work, always ask what the price will be if you pay cash. It is always cheaper than what they charge the insurance company.
I have a co-worker that would take his entire family to Mexico once a year for a “family vacation” and dental work. Apparently there is a dentist there that he used for years.
By
asithi (Who am I?) on Jun 20, 2008