Dental insurance anyone?

[Jokarva]

Does anyone have individual dental insurance?

I just received my retirement pamphlets and the dental insurance I'm paying $8/month for will cost almost $50/month after I retire. That seems a lot for $1500 of benefit per year.

So, does anyone have dental insurance they like, and (if you don't mind sharing) about how much does it run for an individual policy?

TIA!

[Wildwood Flower]

I've never had dental insurance but I know that since getting older I have my teeth cleaned 4 times a year now. And dental work has really gone up. Don't get me started.

[Joshie]

We've been looking at it because I'll go on Medicare some time this year. It certainly doesn't seem to make good financial sense. I think we'll put the premiums into an account and draw from that when we need dental care. Premiums pretty much cost too close to the total coverage amount on the policies I've checked.

[deb]

Originally Posted by Jokarva

Does anyone have individual dental insurance?

I just received my retirement pamphlets and the dental insurance I'm paying $8/month for will cost almost $50/month after I retire. That seems a lot for $1500 of benefit per year.

So, does anyone have dental insurance they like, and (if you don't mind sharing) about how much does it run for an individual policy?

TIA!

Let's see...you would be paying $600 a year for insurance. What percentage of the bill does it pay?

At 50% you'd have to get more than $1200 of dental work done to come our ahead.

At 75% you'd have to get more than $900 worth of dental work done to come out ahead.

This estimate doesn't take into account that you insurance company may have negotiated a lower payment rate then what you your dentist would charge you for a cash payment.

Do you have lots of dental work done every year?

deb
in wi

[salmonslayer]

DW and I have dental insurance that costs us $43.00 a month. Had a root canal and a crown with it not too long ago and it more than paid for itself.

[unioncreek]

I'm a federal employee and we are offered a optional dental plan. We purchased it one year and we all went to the dentist. In the long run it cost us more with the insurance, since they only pay so much anyway. So we dropped it after a year.

Bob

[Jokarva]

I think banking the premiums will be the way to go unless we find a bargain of a policy, hopefully it'll give me that extra incentive to floss more often!

I have good gums but crappy teeth. Lots of old fillings (all been replaced in the past few years with porcelain) and root canals/crowns. So I don't necessarily get a lot of work done each year, but what I do get is awfully expensive.

Thanks for the input!

[copperpennykids]

You could check into a dental plan like Aetna. Important thing is to find a dentist that is accepting the plan.

I believe a Family Plan is about $150.00/year and you pay the "negotiated" price for your dental work - generally save about 40%. The dentist gets paid at the time of service and doesn't have to deal with the insurance rigamarole. I get my teeth cleaned for $44.00 with a dentist that we had already used and liked (and fillings etc are much cheaper as well).

You can check the Aetna Dental site (do a google search of dental plans and look at all of them) and see which dentists accept the plan. Bank the rest of your premiums and you just might end up with the best of both worlds.

[Use Less]

If you anticipate needing complex dental work, find out how much the work costs, how much the insurance would cover, and which dentists will take the insurance. You need to do fairly specific calculations, but you can work out figures for routine & high-probability work that let you make an educated decision.