short term life and dental insurance

When changing from a group health plan to individual short term medical insurance, many people consider providing temporary replacements for their group life insurance and group medical plans. The problem is that while medical insurance provides significant immediate value, the value of dental and life insurance plans accrue over time. In other words, if we were to calculate the real benefits of a life insurance or dental coverage, it would be more 12 months after the policy started that it is today. A significant part of the price of the insurance reflects the benefits that will accrue in future years rather than immediately. This is sharply different than short term medical insurance. For this and other business reasons, there is no insurance product called “short term life insurance” or “short term dental insurance”. Of course you could use regular dental insurance and life insurance, but if the intent s to use them of only a short time then the consumer is effectively overpaying for the coverage that they need.

A better approach is to consider the use of supplemental life and dental insurance that can overlap the period without group coverage and continue in force to provide additional benefits even after new group insurance is in place. These policies are made to overlap and pay benefits in addition to any other insurance.

Fortunately it is easy now to get immediate supplemental life and dental insurance online. A company called Guarantee Trust Life Insurance issues up to $250,000 term life insurance coverage to most people with an online application and no medical exam. A new group of innovative individual dental plans for 2008 like Secure DeltalOne from Health Plan Administrators Inc. offer more coverage options and more reasonable prices than dental plans of the past. The best part is that these insurance plans, even in combination, are only a fraction of the price of the short term medical insurance so they won’t break the insurance budget. In the end, this approach provides the best value in immediate protection as well as making a wider range of coverage options available for the future.