Life insurance, dental & critical illness

Medicare is a genuinely good program, but it was never designed to cover everything. Three gaps come up constantly in conversations at kitchen tables across Portage and Trumbull counties: what a funeral costs, what a dentist costs, and what a serious diagnosis costs beyond the medical bills.

Life insurance

The question is not whether life insurance is a good idea in the abstract. It is what your family would actually have to pay for in the weeks after you die, and whether the money to do it would be available quickly.

Term life

Covers you for a set number of years and pays only if you die during that period. It buys the largest death benefit per dollar, which makes it the right tool for temporary obligations — a mortgage with years left on it, or a spouse who would need income replaced. Premiums are based on your age and health when you buy, so waiting is the most expensive choice available.

Permanent life

Does not expire as long as premiums are paid, and builds cash value over time. It costs more per dollar of benefit because it is designed to pay out eventually rather than possibly. It suits obligations that never go away and situations where you want a specific amount to be there with certainty.

Final expense

Small permanent policies, commonly between a few thousand and about twenty-five thousand dollars, written specifically to cover a funeral, burial or cremation and the immediate bills that follow. This is the most requested product in this practice, and for a plain reason: funerals are expensive, the money is needed within days, and estates take months to settle.

• Simplified underwriting. Many of these policies ask health questions only, with no medical exam — which matters a great deal at 70 or 80.
• Watch for graded benefits. Some policies limit the payout during the first two or three years. That can be an entirely reasonable trade, but you should know before you sign, not after.
• Level premiums that do not increase with age, and coverage that does not expire while it is paid.
• Tell your family it exists. Unclaimed policies are far more common than they should be. Name the beneficiary carefully and say where the paperwork lives.

Dental plans

Original Medicare covers very little routine dental care — no cleanings, no fillings, no dentures in ordinary circumstances. Many Medicare Advantage plans include a dental benefit, but the allowances are often modest and can be used up quickly by a single significant procedure.

A standalone dental plan fills that gap. When comparing them, the monthly premium is the least interesting number. What matters:

• The annual maximum. The most the plan will pay in a year, and the figure that decides whether it helps with a crown or a bridge.
• Waiting periods. Major work frequently has a waiting period of six to twelve months. Buying before you need it is the entire strategy.
• What counts as major. Crowns, bridges, dentures, root canals and extractions are covered at lower percentages than cleanings.
• Your dentist. Some plans are network-based, others pay a set schedule anywhere. If you like your dentist, check first.

Vision and hearing coverage often pair with dental, and hearing aids in particular are a large out-of-pocket expense that catches people by surprise.

Critical illness coverage

A critical illness policy pays you a lump sum of cash when you are diagnosed with one of the conditions listed in the policy — commonly heart attack, stroke, or cancer, with the specific list and definitions varying by policy.

The important thing to understand is what the money is for. It is not health insurance and it does not pay the hospital. It is paid directly to you, to spend on anything at all: the deductible, travel to a specialist in Cleveland, a family member taking unpaid leave to help, the mortgage while you are not working, or someone to keep the house running.

• Read the definitions. These policies pay on specifically defined events. Two policies covering "heart attack" may define it differently.
• Check whether it pays more than once and whether a second, unrelated diagnosis is covered.
• Look at pre-existing condition rules and any waiting period at the start.
• Ask how the benefit changes with age, since some policies reduce coverage at a certain birthday.

For someone on a fixed income, the value is less about the medical bills and more about not having to make financial decisions during the worst month of your life.

How these fit with Medicare

None of these replace your Medicare coverage and none of them interfere with it. They sit alongside it, covering things Medicare was never built to handle. Which of the three matter to you depends entirely on your situation: whether anyone depends on your income, whether your teeth need work, whether there is family history that concerns you, and what you already have set aside.

That is a twenty-minute conversation, and it costs nothing to have it.