A Look At Our Insurance Choices

Like most families, our insurance needs are also varied. We have an affordable life insurance, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance through our respective work places and have opted not to take life insurance for our children. Our work place also provides us with health and dental coverage. We also have high-deductible car insurance with 21st century insurance and our home is insured through Allied. Below is a summary of our insurance selections, summarized coverage information, and costs:

Type	Vendor	Cost	Coverage
Life Insurance	MetLife	Zero – Employer Benefit	$50000 basic life and basic accidental dealth & dismemberment coverage.
Short Term Disability (STD)	UnumProvident	Zero – Employer Benefit	6 weeks after 7-day waiting period at 100% with a maximum of about $1700 per week. From 7th week, benefits reduced to 60% to a maximum of 26 weeks.
Long Term Disability (LTD)	UnumProvident	Zero – Employer Benefit	After 6-months of STD, 40% of salary with a maximum of $10000 per month. Benefits to age 65 or 5 years whichever is higher.
Medical and Dental	Aetna Dental DMO and Aetna Choice POS II	About $2500 per year	$20 co-pay, and pretty high deductible and out-of-pocket maximums for medical. Dental is in-network only plan with pretty high deductibles for anything other than a routine visit.
Home	Allied	About $150 per year per $100K worth of coverage	Standard coverage with 125% extended replacement cost option.
Cars	21st century insurance	About $100 per month	$1K deductible. $250K/$500K BI, $100K/$300K UMBI, Two Cars – older Lexus LS400 and a newer Honda CRV.

Summary:

Our life insurance coverage through our employers provides only limited coverage. Affordable life insurance is an area we will be pursuing for opportunities to supplement our employer coverages as we are very much under-insured. An accidental Death and dismemberment coverage that supplements our basic employer coverage is a necessity.

The auto and home insurance expenses are reasonable even though the deductible is on the high side for both of them. We have been lucky to be spared of accidents due to our fault for a while and that might account for some of this. Even so, we are in the look out for opportunities that will provide us with a discount on both our car and home insurances when consolidating these to be serviced by a single vendor. Further, we do not have earthquake coverage. Allied has an insurance product that covers earthquake but is very expensive. Certain other insurance companies provide coverage in conjunction with California Earthquake Authority (CEA) but they usually necessitate that they also provide the fire coverage.

Medical and Dental insurance are expensive but the out-of-pocket maximums should shield us very well against heavy medical and dental bills. Alternatives are non-existent as costs will be prohibitively high for a comparable plan if we decide to venture beyond our employer plan.