Company health insurance plans - Are they good enough?

Is there or was there ever a place called Utopia? I don’t know, but I do know that signifies unrealistic dreams. If you thought (still thinks) that your company health insurance is good for your health protection, then you are in Utopia. Want to know why, read on!!
Most good (with a capital G) companies offer health policy for employees and their families and in some cases parents. Now the key word here is “employees”. Your policy is good enough as long as you are an employee of the company. Now what on the earth makes an otherwise sensible individual like you think that you will remain an employee forever?
Several things can change – you might be asked to go (as painful as it is), you might take a new job, you might decide to start something on your own. The best-case scenario among these, that of you taking a new job, still might leave you unprotected for a certain time period (between your relieving date and joining dates). Again, I must ask what makes an otherwise sensible person like you to think that you will not have a health issue during that period.

Now onto more serious things – Assuming you are the cream of the cream in your current company, you don’t see yourself switching or getting kicked out – may I ask (again) - what makes you, an otherwise sensible person, think that you will not need health insurance after you retire (60 the last time I checked). What makes you think that any insurance company would offer you a cheap policy at that age? And let us face the reality – Probability of health issues goes up with age. (In case you have wondered, that is why life insurance premium increase with age).

Now everything goes well (Murphy does not like that. mind you), you work for the some company until you are sixty, you will buy a new policy at that age. If that is what you think, here are three reasons (among many others) as to why it makes sense to do it now.

1. Most insurance companies do not insist on a health check up if you enroll before the age of 45. Pre-existing diseases are covered, in most cases, after first 4 years.
2. The sweetener – Income Tax deduction for health insurance premium payment to 15000 for your health polices. i.e. you pay 10050 for a 15000 policy if you are in the highest tax bracket.
3. Your job and hence the employer coverage is not guaranteed (remember that the employee is covered and not you as in individual)

Time to read your decision meter – If you ask me, it is not worth your life or health to bet on inflation or deflation or counting on you being healthy at 60 and continuing to be in your current employment until you are sixty. That would certainly, at least for me, make Utopia a nice palm laced island in the middle of the Pacific. You need to make a call – that better be the right call. Happy Health!!