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Short-Term Disability Insurance

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Returning from the Quick Tip Week refreshed, I’m ready to start and finish another category in our document organization.

We are in the home stretch in organizing our insurance paperwork in Box 2 of our important documents.

Kept within the tenth file opening are the documents for our short-term disability insurance which makes up our eighth category in our insurance filing system.

Short Term Disability Insurance

Defined

This type of policy protects Paul’s paycheck should he become disabled. Short term disability insurance is typically more expensive than long-term disability since you have a greater chance of using short-term than long-term.

Our policy will pay us 60% of Paul’s paycheck from day 7-90 should he become disabled. Our short-term policy covers the first 3 months before our long-term insurance takes effect. Each policy has different options, but this is a typical policy.

Documents

For this policy, I keep the following documents in this tenth file opening of our insurance file box:

1. Summary Page: This one-page document has the administrator’s contact information, our policy number, and instructions for filing claims.

2. Policy: Approximately 15 pages in length, this document lists our coverage, claim information, and limits.

3. Notifications: Currently, we carry a policy with the largest coverage allowed. We started out with 40% coverage and have inched it up to the 60% limit. With each increase, our policyholder has approved our request and sent notification of the changes.

4. Correspondence: Since Paul’s employer changed providers a few years ago and the rates were better with the new company, we switched our policy to the new provider to save money and stay in the group options. I keep the documents from our former contract should I need that information.

5. Release Authorization: Since Paul is the insured, the provider required his authorization before releasing information to me. In making the calls and keeping the documents, I periodically need information from the company. To prevent frustration with agents, Paul authorized a permanent release for me.

These documents placed together stay in this eighth category of our insurance documents.

If you have a short-term disability policy, then gather those documents and place them in this file. If you don’t have this policy and hope to have one, then create a label and leave an empty space in your file for the future. Easy peasy!

With another category complete, we only have one more category to complete file box 2. Keep up the good work. Happy organizing!

Question: Do you carry a short-term disability policy?

Special Health Policies: Stem Cell Preservation Policies

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On this Father’s Day, we celebrate the Dads in our lives and complete category seven in our insurance files. Woo hoo!

You may have finished this category already depending on the special health policies you hold.

Since I have three policies and two of them are stem cell preservation policies, I dedicated last week’s post to our Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy, and this week I will cover stem cell preservation policies. We have one policy for child #2 and the other for child #3.

Stem Cell Preservation Policies

These special health policies are optional and quite expensive. In fact, the reason we have two policies and not three is due to the cost. When our son (child #1) was born, we did not have the finances to bank his cord blood.

We had just finished building our home when we found out we were pregnant. Excited and wanting the best for our baby, we scrimped and saved for the delivery costs, but we did not have the extra $1700 for this policy.

Knowing we missed out on this opportunity helped us prepare for our future additions. When our girls came along, we chose to bank their stem cells and keep their policies within this ninth file opening.

Defined

Stem cell preservation is storing the umbilical cord for future uses. Per Cryo-Cell International’s web site:

Umbilical cord blood is the blood that remains in the vein of the umbilical cord and placenta at the time of birth. Cord blood is rich in stem cells and Cryo-Cell’s umbilical cord blood service collects, processes and cryogenically preserves these cells for potential medical use. Umbilical cord blood stem cells have been used to treat nearly 80 diseases with over 25,000 transplants worldwide.

Benefits

If our children get an illness that needs pure stem cells, then we have perfect matches for our girls and a high chance that our son will match one of them.

With these policies, we can get the stem cells within 48 hours without cost to us. We do pay annually for the storage, but at our time of need, we will not incur transportation costs for the stem cells.

Since transplanting the cells will exceed our budget, we carry our critical illness and cancer protection policy which will pay in one lump sum supplying the needed funds for a transplant.

Documents

For these policies, I keep the following documents organized by the client number in this ninth file opening of our insurance file box:

1. Summary Page (one for each policy)

This one-page document lists the procedure to follow should Paul and I pass away together.

Since these policies belong to our daughters, Cryo-Cell will need to appoint a guardian (per our wills) on behalf of our girls. When each daughter reaches age 21, she will own her own policy and continue paying for the storage fee annually.

Having this information in writing will aid our executor should Paul and I pass away together. I’ve planned for the future because tomorrow is not promised to any of us.

2. Enrollment Application

Printouts of the offer, price, and services including the 7-page clinical application document remain stapled together.

3. Policy

4. Delivery Confirmation Notices

Since we had to arrange for pickup of the kit, we kept all the instructions and air bills for confirmation.

5. Preservation Certificate

Confirmation of the cord blood received, processed, and preserved with Client ID number.

6. Receipts

With an annual storage fee, I keep our receipts showing payment received.

These documents are paper clipped together into two bundles and housed behind our Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy in this seventh category of our insurance documents.

Though you may never consider harvesting your child’s cord blood, you might have alternative therapy or a chiropractic policy which need similar paperwork. By planning your file to accommodate these policies, you will save energy and time by filing them directly than creating a new slot. Happy organizing!

Question: What do you think of cord blood preservation?

Special Health Policies: Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy

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Last week, I gave an overview of the special health policies category. These policies are optional, and some experts advise against carrying them.

I am not an expert, but I research our options before committing our family dollars to an insurance premium.

In finding policies that fit our family’s needs and budget, we apply and place the documents within this special health policies category.

The first set of documents in our special health policies slot is paperwork for our Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy.

Defined

Our Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy provides a single cash benefit upon the first diagnosis of a covered critical illness or condition (as defined in the policy). We can use our benefit any way our family needs, and the benefit amount is paid in full even if treatment costs are less than the benefit.

The policy we hold covers our entire family. If any one of the 5 of us receives a diagnosis of a covered condition (e.g., heart attack, stroke, invasive cancer, kidney failure, etc.), then this policy will pay the full lump sum for us to use for income replacement, medical treatment, child care, transportation, or any way we need.

Though this policy is not a necessity, we choose to protect our family with this group policy which almost pays for itself with the health screening benefit.

Benefits

Our policy carries a health screening benefit which pays up to $100 for the cost of a screening test per person per calendar year. Since our family has annual physical exams each year, this benefit reimburses our family a total of $500 for the year. (I shared in this post the details of this benefit.)

With this benefit and the added protection to choose experimental or out-of-network medical treatment should one of us get seriously ill makes this Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy worth our hard-earned dollars.

Documents

For this policy, I keep the following documents in this ninth file opening of our insurance file box:

1. Summary Page

This one-paged document holds vital information about this policy.

2. Policy

3. Endorsement

These documents explain changes made to the original policy (e.g., adding a child, increasing our coverage, upgrading a rider, etc.).

4. Correspondence

Copies of my submissions for the health screening benefit and the checks received and the reviews of our current coverage makeup the correspondence part of this policy.

All these documents are paper clipped together and housed in this seventh category of our insurance documents.

If a cancer policy is an option and you have heard that this type of policy is not worth the annual premium, then research. In using time wisely, I weighed the cost of the premiums with the benefits available. Our policy is worth every cent we pay, but not all policies are equal.

When you do the research you might find your policy does not have these benefits. If the policy does not fit with your family’s needs, then don’t waste your money. However, don’t overlook a great option because someone lumped all the cancer policies together and stamped “refuse” on the top.

As you continue working through your piles of paperwork, keep organizing and labeling your categories for quick access in the future. Happy organizing!

Question: Do you read your insurance policies from front to back?

Special Health Policies Overview

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In setting up our insurance document file, I worked with the policies we held and provided space for additions. The ninth file opening in our insurance document file holds special insurance policies we have chosen to carry.

If you do not have any special health policies, you may choose to skip this category or leave it empty for future policies.

Remember the key is organizing your paperwork. I just share how I organize our documents to give you a starting point. Your file will look different because you hold different types of policies than I.

Within my filing system, this seventh category of special health policies holds two types of insurance in three separate policies.

Special Health Policies

  • Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy
  • Stem Cell Preservation – Policy 1
  • Stem Cell Preservation – Policy 2

Other items you might file within a special health policies’ category include:

  • Alternative Therapy
  • Catastrophic
  • Chiropractic Care
  • Durable Medical Equipment

As you file your insurance documents, start with the policies you have. If you plan to add more policies, then just leave an empty labeled slot for the future.

In creating designated space for your insurance documents, you are working through your piles of paperwork while using time wisely. Keep organizing!

Question: What types of special health policies do you carry?

Dental & Vision Insurance: Vision Documents

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With many little categories in this insurance filing system, I hope you are making lots of headway on getting your paperwork organized.

Last week, I started the dental and vision insurance category with the dental documents, and today is the last post dedicated to this sixth category.

Vision Insurance Documents

The information about our vision coverage, eligibility, and cost resides in our 2012 Insurance Benefits Guide, housed in our major medical category. The documents held in this eighth file opening include:

1. Insurance cards (since I can print more cards by accessing our account via the Internet, I do not keep copies of these cards in the file.)

2. Savings summary from our provider

3. Provider’s privacy practices

4. Correspondence from provider confirming activation of coverage

Since all these items came together in one mailing, I stapled these documents together. Keeping these documents in the same opening as our dental documents, I placed them behind the paper clipped group of dental paperwork.

Some of these file openings contain a few pages, and I find having the sections separated and labeled saves time and energy when needing the information contained within. As changes or other documents reach our home, I only need a few minutes to file those documents into the filing system.

Taking time to get the paperwork organized saves you time and energy for the long haul. In using time wisely, keep working. You will be glad you did. Happy organizing!

Question: How is your organizational system coming along?