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convince me to get dental insurance?

amyinaustinamyinaustin
in Austin Babies

We have until tomorrow to make the call and I've procrastinated :)

For all 4 of us, it would be $50/month.   The deductible is $25 indiv/$75 family.  We'd get 2 exams/xrays a year for DD, one a year for DH and myself.  After scanning all the fine print, it looks like most things (filings/crowns/etc) are at either 60% or 80% covered after the deductible is met.

DH and I have really been neglecting our dental health lately.  I haven't been in at least 2 years and DH has gone way longer. I know that when/if we both go, we'll need at least some filings each.  I really do want to be proactive w/ DD1 though and get her in twice a year as recommended.

I just always hear about what a rip off dental insurance is - but $600 a year is not too horrible (considering DD's first appointment ever was this year and it was well over $200 w/o insurance).

So what say you, Nestie moms?  Do you have dental insurance, is it worth it, is the info I've provided considered a good deal, or are we getting ripped off?

Have to post and run but I will check back in a bit.

TIA!

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Re: convince me to get dental insurance?

  • fjarilfjaril

    I can't imagine not having dental.

    O hadn't been in years and his work was well over 2k w/out insurance and with it, it was less than 300 bucks. 

    so even if you add the cost of our plan (to the whole family) and his copay, we're well under 1/3 the cost of his work.

    If you haven't been in a while, I'd have it for a year and try to get everything taken care of. If the cost feels too high, then you can always cancel it next year.

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  • libbyannlibbyann member

    Get it. I've been waiting a year to be able to afford dental coverage - I need a crown badly and can't afford the out of pocket expense for one without insurance. DH got a new job in August with decent dental coverage, but there's a waiting period of a year before they'll cover major dental work, like crowns, root canals, etc...so I now get to wait in pain for August to come.

    Your plan sounds really good. I'm not sure what we pay each month (it's taken out of his check automatically), but I don't believe our coverage is that good for that cheap.

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  • AustinAggie01AustinAggie01

    I'd definitely go for dental. 

    Vision is the coverage that sometimes gets a side-eye from me because many times (not all plans are like this, but many are) it amounts to a discount (not actual coverage/co-pay/deductible kind of thing), that would equal just about what you pay annually in your monthly contributions.  If you use it, great, you got a pre-tax discount on new lenses.  If you don't use it, you just wasted money.  Plus, if something was really wrong and required surgery or something, it would be covered by your medical insurance anyway.

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  • ditzydi_2000ditzydi_2000
    In the grand scheme of things I think $600 is a very reasonable price for dental insurance.  Just to give you an idea, I had to go to the dentist just for x-rays because I was having horrible tooth pain.  I thought I didn't have dental insurance and out of pocket that one visit cost me $250 when I was broke and really couldn't afford that bill.  Come to find out, after talking to my dad I was still covered under his insurance until I was 21.  Oh and I was told I needed a root canal.  I would have really hated to find out how much that bill would have been had I not had insurance.  But since I did, I got it done ASAP.  And since you said that you've neglected to get your chompers checked out, I'd say get the insurance and get them looked at this year.  Oh and hopefully your dd isn't like our ds.  Within 11 months he had this weird gray line of plaque or something that formed along his gumline.  No amount of us brushing it could get that crud off.  
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  • HSartteachHSartteach member
    dental insurance is so worth it.  I paid so much for my fillings/crown without it.  It's such a small price compared to other insurance.
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  • MrsMillerTimeMrsMillerTime
    I'm in the minority and we're going without.  We still take DD to her pedi dentist 2x per year and just pay for the exam out of pocket (about $100 each visit).  DH & I don't go as often as we should, but our dentist offers an "insurance" through their office (it's $50/person/year) and they will discount their services, too.  Since we rarely go to the dentist and we both have pretty good dental health (no fillings/crowns/etc) it just isn't worth it to us for such a huge expense.  If one of us were to need a serious dental procedure, the discounted rate from our dentist is about the same as a year's worth of dental insurance.
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  • amyinaustinamyinaustin
    thanks for all the feedback.  We decided to go ahead and do it for now - we'll try it out for a year and see how much we use it.  I guess I need to start lining up babysitters for all the dental work in my future :(
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