Across America there is a lot of anxiety surrounding trips to the doctor or hospital, so much so that there’s a growing portion of the population that would rather shrug off symptoms than go get checked out (University of Chicago). A large part of this fear comes from rising medical costs (Peterson-KFF), and a worry that a major illness might upend your entire life.
And that’s fair! Fear of becoming ill or hurt is considered a top-five stressor by psychiatric professionals (University of Hospitals). And there are a lot of diagnoses out there that could seriously change your life, especially financially.
Health insurance is a great way to save on medical bills, but medical bills aren’t the only cost when you get sick or hurt. When you go through a medical event, you’re always going to have expenses you don’t expect. Ambulances, time off work, babysitters, all these things add up, meaning even with the best health insurance in the world, one trip to the hospital could end up really disrupting your financial wellbeing.
That’s where Aflac comes in. Where medical insurance providers like Sharp or Kaiser help cover the costs of your doctor bills, Aflac helps you directly by giving you money to put wherever you need it. This is great for multiple reasons: for one, it gives you peace of mind, knowing you’ll be covered if something goes wrong; two, if something does go wrong, Aflac will soften the blow and help make sure you’re not financially devastated; and three, Aflac will consistently protect you should you come to have a chronic issue.
Peace of mind is the biggest draw for Aflac. Knowing you’re covered in the case of an accident, being hospitalized, or being diagnosed with a critical illness makes a world of difference.
Wellness Exams and Chronic Issues
Aflac’s Critical Illness plan and Accident plan both feature wellness benefits. These wellness benefits offer a $50 payout annually for doing routine checks (and an additional $200 for a mammogram). Additionally, the Hospital Indemnity plan offers a $25-$50 payout up to six times a year for seeing a doctor for a covered illness. This really helps encourage people to get over the small hurdle and actually get checked on.
Personally, I need to get regular check-ups and blood tests due to an autoimmune disease. Because I have the Critical Illness plan, I get $50 once a year for blood tests, and because I have the hospital indemnity plan, I tend to have more than six doctor visits per year. Because of this, I’m able to get $200 just for doing what I’d need to do anyway. I also know that I’m covered if I get tested and end up needing additional treatment (which is the real benefit).
Helps handle Unprecedented Moments
In order to best understand Aflac, I sat down and talked with Will Stover, our Aflac expert. I expected to just talk with him about what our clients told him, but he told me a rather personal story.
“I’ve always believed in Aflac, after all, I wouldn’t tell members to get it if I didn’t. So, I even have my wife signed up for it. She always goes out of her way to use her wellness benefits for the year, and last year she went in for her mammogram.”
“We were shocked when the test came back positive. Breast cancer. Immediately we both thought of our kid.” Will has a young son who I can sometimes hear in the background of our meetings asking his dad when they can go play baseball. “It was a week before school started, and this was last year (2021), so schools were just opening back up.” Will went on to talk about his worries about his kid getting the virus, “if he got sick and I had to take care of him, who would take care of my wife who might be immuno-compromised due to her treatment. I didn’t know what to do.”
Luckily, Will managed to find an online school option for his son, but that presented an entirely different problem, “if he’s at home all day, and I’m taking my wife to her treatments and working who’s going to watch him?”
Then the rest of the problems began to sink in. “We also have bills to pay. My wife was going to have to take time off work, can we afford to pay for everything on one income?”
Will submitted his wife’s Aflac claim. Between the diagnosis, treatment, wellness benefit, and everything else, she was able to get $12,000.
“That amount of money was life-saving. We could pay for my mom to fly out from Chicago to watch my kid, pay for her expenses, and practically give her a salary to replace the work she’s missing back home. And we’d have enough left over to help cover the bills, at least for a while.”
When I asked Will what the best part about it was, he said “Now, she could focus on getting better. She didn’t have to stress about my son and the finances. She knew everyone was being taken care of. It calmed me down too, and I was able to be there for her. It changed everything.”
But that wasn’t all. Will and his wife finally caught a lucky break. “Through the miracle of modern medicine and because we caught it early, they were able to fix it. She’s cancer free and doing great. And it happened so fast too. All that planning, all those worst-case scenarios? They didn’t happen. We didn’t end up needing it.”
So, I asked him, what’s the plan with the $12,000? “A part of it went to changing our $10,000 payout Cancer plan to the guaranteed issue $30,000 plan.” The rest? A much-deserved family vacation.