4 Things you should do Before Open Enrollment Closes
What is Open Enrollment?
This is ‘open enrollment‘ time of year at many employers. What is open enrollment? It’s basically a window of time that your employer allows you to change your benefit elections for the upcoming year. Since you typically only get one chance to do this, you want to make sure you’re taking advantage of it. Here are some things you should do:
1. Update your Medical Health Insurance:
Look to see if the cost or benefits of the plans will change from what they presently are. Sometimes employers will raise or lower premiums, co-pays, and covered benefits for various plans. This might make it worth it to make the switch, but if you don’t at least look at the details, you’ll never know. This year, I discovered that my plan no longer charges a co-pay for preventative health visits.
2. Update your Medical Flexible Spending Account (FSA):
During open enrollment you can elect how much to put into your FSA. FSA’s are spending accounts that are funding by deductions from your paycheck. The nice thing about FSA’s is that the funds are not taxed, so you are saving money on your medical expenses.
Check to see how much your employer will allow you to deduct (the maximum FSA amount is often $3,000). If you do opt for an FSA, be careful not to load it with more than you will spend as it is often ‘use it or lose it’ in many plans. Not sure how much you might spend on medical expenses? Check out Kiplinger’s FSA calculator.
3. Update your Beneficiary Information:
If you’ve had any major life changes in the past year that would cause your beneficiaries to change, open enrollment is the time to update.
4. Consider Voluntary Life Insurance and Disability Insurance:
If you are currently paying for these things on your own, your employer may be able to offer you a better rate through a voluntary group plan. The costs for these voluntary plans would be deducted from your paycheck.
Open Enrollment Discussion:
- Have you made any changes to your benefits during open enrollment? What changes?
- How much are you funding your FSA with?
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How does the Economy & your Income Impact your Health
Also, one thing that few realize is that individual health insurance is much cheaper than a similar group health insurance plan. This doesn’t matter in most cases because the employer will pay for most or all of the employee’s health insurance coverage BUT if the employer doesn’t pay for the spouse or dependent’s coverage then one can save a boatload of money and get close to the same amount of coverage (often from the same insurer too) for much less by opting for an individual plan rather than being added onto the employee’s group plan.
I think that when my open enrollment happened (August, as we’re state employees where I work) I just renewed all my current coverages, since I didn’t have any problems.
I don’t have an FSA, as I’m a 30-year old vegetarian with no health problems and no plans to have children. If I ever develop a chronic condition, then I’ll spring – but as it stands I’ve been to the doctor three times in the past two years and haven’t had any real health costs to speak of.
@ Honey – FSA’s can be used for a number of things including insurance co-pays, eye glasses, contacts, etc. Not just for those with health problems.
I maxed it out this year with $3k and since we have no kids I had a hard time spending it. Let’s just say I am still scrambling to buy Tylenol, neosporin, eyedrops, pregnancy tests in bulk to use it up. I also went to the chiropractor an insane number of times trying to use it up. Next year I will definitely be lowering it to around 1k or so.
Is response to Honey’s comment. Many people develope serious conditions with the same background. Never being sick or ever having a problem before. Its better safe than sorry
@ CDI collection agency – I have health insurance in case I develop any health problems – that’s the “it’s better safe than sorry” bit for me. I’m not going to deliberately put myself in a position where the likeliest scenario is that I will lose a bunch of money. I have an emergency fund of several thousand dollars (more than the FSA maximum) and if I something happens healthwise where I spend all that money then I can claim it on my taxes.
This raises a good question, though – an FSA only makes sense if you claim the standard deduction, right? If you know you’re going to itemize anyway, then you can just claim the health expenses then. Or am I missing something?
As someone mentioned earlier, health insurance is a better option than a similar group health insurance plan. Expensive but will really be useful if the spousr or children are 2 be covered
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I always check to see how much (if at all) my rates have changed for medical, dental and vision coverage. If I can’t afford it, I usually switch to a more affordable plan during open enrollment. I like my current dental and medical providers, but costs seem to rise each year and I always take time to do a little research.
Medical Health Insurance at me too has changed.Have Transferred in other insurance company. Quality of service became worse. I always watch such changes.
I have a choice of 2 plans from same insurance company through my employer. Cheaper plan pays most of the stuff 80% while expensive plan covers 100%.
Cheaper plan co-pays are $20 more than expensive plan. Our family is relatively healthy and rarely go to the doctor. We do have a newborn, who is days old. Considering, cheaper plan is $2000 less than expensive plan in 2010, is it better to go with cheaper plan and have a FSA of about $500 or so to take care of higher co-pays, or just go with the expensive plan, and get some peace of mind?
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