Cancer Insurance

[bogey21]

For years I have been getting solicitations regarding Cancer Insurance and have blown them off. Now that I am 80+ years old and have switched to a Medicare Advantage Insurance Plan as opposed to the more comprehensive plan offered by my ex-employer I am rethinking Cancer Insurance. The cost savings is roughly $7,500 annually.

The cost quoted for a $10,000 Cancer Insurance Policy from Aetna is roughly $32 per month (less than $400 annually). My reasons for rethinking this is (1) that I have read that the probability of individuals over age 55 of getting cancer in their lifetime is 77% and (2) with less comprehensive Medical Insurance I might want to go out of Network or opt for a non-covered treatment if I would get cancer.

Any thoughts?

George

 

[Passepartout]

Only you can answer if this is of value to you in your situation. I would think, though that it's not an either/or choice. If you want to purchase this additional coverage, well and good, but dropping the Medicare Advantage in favor of just cancer coverage doesn't seem too wise. And, these days, $10,000 isn't much coverage where your Advantage policy likely has a lifetime cap in the millions, if any cap at all.

Just my $.02 worth.

Jim

 

[SmithOp]

Years ago was the time to buy, at your age the premiums are high and coverage low.


Sent from my iPad Mini 4 using Tapatalk

 

[b2bailey]

Are you saying the policy would pay a total of $10,000? If yes, that is a drop in the bucket for cancer treatment.

 

[bogey21]

I may not have posed my question well. I have no intention of dropping my Medicare Advantage Plan but would be looking at the Cancer Insurance to cover my $4,900 maximum out of pocket and any expenses not covered by my Medicare Advantage Plan should I choose to go out of network or opt for some form of non covered treatment. In addition the Cancer Insurance I am looking at would pay the entire $10,000 upon diagnosis. Policy would be issued by Continental Insurance, a subsidiary of Aetna. Premium quoted is $32 per month, roughly $400 per year.

George

PS I don't currently have cancer and have no indication whatsoever that it may be in my future.

 

[wackymother]

For years I have been getting solicitations regarding Cancer Insurance and have blown them off. Now that I am 80+ years old and have switched to a Medicare Advantage Insurance Plan as opposed to the more comprehensive plan offered by my ex-employer I am rethinking Cancer Insurance. The cost savings is roughly $7,500 annually.

The cost quoted for a $10,000 Cancer Insurance Policy from Aetna is roughly $32 per month (less than $400 annually). My reasons for rethinking this is (1) that I have read that the probability of individuals over age 55 of getting cancer in their lifetime is 77% and (2) with less comprehensive Medical Insurance I might want to go out of Network or opt for a non-covered treatment if I would get cancer.

Any thoughts?

George

I think you should talk to a good insurance broker.

If you're over 80, this might be one kind of insurance that might be LESS expensive--that is, if you've made it this far, your odds of needing cancer treatment might be lower than the odds for someone in their 60s or 70s. I imagine the cost might also be influenced by your family history and general health.

Good luck!

 

[geekette]

I don't see that 10k makes enough difference to bother but cheap monthly pay for "just in case" isn't a bad thing. If having the policy makes you more comfortable than not having it, buy it. I think the plan offered here at work is money upfront upon diagnosis so $ could be used for anything (bills while I'm off work, hotel room for family to visit me in hospital, etc), and this sounds like the same. At the very least, it seems to me that if confronted with such a diagnosis, at least some of the financial portion of "what do I do about ..." would be taken care of.

 

[WinniWoman]

I read somewhere that this insurance isn't really worth it. They have it at my job and I never take it out.

 

[Timeshare Von]

I had the opportunity to be catastrophic medical insurance that would have paid out $100,000 at the point of a diagnosis of heart attack, cancer or stroke. I was 56 years old at the time and sorta laughed it off.

A year later, I had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer . . . and six months after that my younger sister had a mild heart attack.

For what would have been around the $400 in annual premiums paid, we would have received a cash lump sum payment from the insurance company (Mutual of Omaha).

Don't you know I sure wish I had bought the policy at the time offered? And I'm sure my sister would have loved to have been paid $100k too!

This type of policy pays regardless of other "typical" insurance that pays for care, etc. It is simply a direct payment to the insured of the benefit.

Now that I have the diagnosis, I'll never get decent insurance for disability or catastrophic.

 

[bogey21]

Update - I decided to purchase a $10,000 policy from Aetna. It pays the full amount upon diagnosis. My rationale is that I gave up my all inclusive Secondary (to Medicare) Health Insurance (including prescriptions) and switched to a Medicare Advantage HMO plan which also includes prescriptions. My annual savings is over $7,000 annually! My maximum Out of Pocket on the Medicare Advantage coverage is $4,900.

My concern is that if I came down with cancer I might want to go Out of Network or try a procedure that my new insurance might not cover. Thus I concluded that spending $384 annually for the $10,000 Cancer Plan is worthwhile. Later in the year I will reevaluate and decide if I want to keep it or maybe even increase the coverage to $15,000.

George

 

[judyjht]

$10,000 (or even $15,000) is nothing when it comes to cancer. I had breast cancer 4 years ago and had a lumectomy (one breast). The total for everything was $85,000 for all the pre appointments, surgery, radiation, mammograms, ultrasounds bla bla bla. I did not even have chemo so I am sure that would add quite a bit more but I don't know how much (thank goodness). It is up to you but that won't even make a dent!

 

[bogey21]

$10,000 (or even $15,000) is nothing when it comes to cancer......It is up to you but that won't even make a dent!

True. But remember that I already have my Medicare Advantage coverage with a maximum out of pocket of $4,900 annually.

George

PS Because the cost is so little I am thinking of increasing my cancer coverage to $15,000 or $20,000.

 

[MommaBear]

At one point my father's chemo pill was $9,000 a month. Your coverage isn't going to go far. On the other hand...

Certainly having a $32 per month policy to cover your deductible would be a great idea, as it would take 153 months to accumulate that same amount if you were to take your own money and put it savings. It would take 312 months to save $10,000. What I cannot tell you is how much more valuable a more expensive policy would be. Only you know if would be worth it.

 

[bogey21]

At one point my father's chemo pill was $9,000 a month. Your coverage isn't going to go far.....

What I need to do is to research what my Medicare Advantage Policy will cover. As of now I am looking at the Cancer Insurance as a supplement to it. Note that I don't have cancer now nor any indication that I may be any more vulnerable to it than the next guy. Rather I look at the Cancer Insurance as a "just in case" thing at the cost of a decent meal in a halfway decent restaurant.

George

 

[zinger1457]

If you're +80 years old and still healthy it sounds to me like you already beat the odds, stop worrying about it. For men who are 80 years old the chances of dying from cancer in the next 10 years is fairly small (~6%), assuming you're not a smoker.

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/94/11/799.long

As others have suggested $10K won't get you anything of value for out of network treatment so by itself it seems like a waste even if it doesn't cost much.

 

[JudyS]

If you're +80 years old and still healthy it sounds to me like you already beat the odds, stop worrying about it. For men who are 80 years old the chances of dying from cancer in the next 10 years is fairly small (~6%), assuming you're not a smoker.

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/94/11/799.long...

That's a misinterpretation of the chart. The chart doesn't give the *overall* chance of dying from cancer, just the chance of dying from lung, colon, or prostate cancer. The chart says that of every 1000 eighty-year-old non-smoking men, 652 are expected to die in the next 10 years. But, the causes of death listed on the chart explain the deaths of only 361 men. The other 291 are expected to die of causes other than those listed on the chart. This would presumably include many who die from pancreatic, skin, brain, stomach, liver, or blood cancers. But, the number who die of those cancers is left unspecified.

In general, something like 1-in-3 older people who die, die from cancer. That would put the 10-year risk of dying from cancer at about 22% for an 80-year-old male non-smoker.

 

[zinger1457]

That's a misinterpretation of the chart.

Yep, I missed the unaccounted for numbers so it's hard to know the exact number for cancers from that chart but it seems like 22% would be too high. That number would mean the unaccounted for deaths from other types of cancers would ~3.5X higher than the top 3 (prostrate, lung, colon) combined.

 

[JudyS]

Well, I don't know the death rate for sure. But, there are a lot of different types of cancer.

 

[bogey21]

If you're +80 years old and still healthy it sounds to me like you already beat the odds, stop worrying about it. For men who are 80 years old the chances of dying from cancer in the next 10 years is fairly small (~6%), assuming you're not a smoker.

Thanks for the chart. It is somewhat comforting to me as I am almost 81 and have never smoked.

George

 

[Timeshare Von]

$10,000 (or even $15,000) is nothing when it comes to cancer. I had breast cancer 4 years ago and had a lumectomy (one breast). The total for everything was $85,000 for all the pre appointments, surgery, radiation, mammograms, ultrasounds bla bla bla. I did not even have chemo so I am sure that would add quite a bit more but I don't know how much (thank goodness). It is up to you but that won't even make a dent!

I agree with this comment. For my OvCA, which was treated/removed with "just" surgery, my medical expenses for 2015 exceeded $100,000. That was without chemo or radiation . . . just surgery and a 5 day stay in the hospital.

 

[WinniWoman]

Look at it this way- people don't buy Stroke insurance. People don't buy Heart Attack insurance.

You have health insurance to cover all different illnesses.

 

[bogey21]

Look at it this way- people don't buy Stroke insurance. People don't buy Heart Attack insurance.

Actually they do. It is called Critical Illness Insurance and covers cancer, heart attacks and strokes. The premium is substantially higher than just Cancer Insurance.

George

 

[WinniWoman]

Actually they do. It is called Critical Illness Insurance and covers cancer, heart attacks and strokes. The premium is substantially higher than just Cancer Insurance.

George

LOL! Really? I didn't know...But again, isn't this all what having health insurance is about? I just don't get targeted illness insurance.

 

[rapmarks]

I would have made some money if I had purchased that policy. one pill I had to take 4 years ago cost $23,000, preceded by two shots at three thousand each, etc. etc. etc.

My next door neighbor at age 82 was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of leukemia in mid January, he died on Super Bowl evening.

 

[johnrsrq]

LOL! Really? I didn't know...But again, isn't this all what having health insurance is about? I just don't get targeted illness insurance.

actually they do! They buy a crtitical illness rider offered in various combination life insurance policy/long term care living benefit policy. This way one way or another, through tax free income streams, critical illness payments, ltc benefits or life diagnosis of terminal cancer- benefits can be paid off of the much higher death benefit while the person is living or, if you are gifted with continuous good health, leave it as tax free death benefits or, take tax free cash flows.

requires health underwriting and payments. Cannot cancel by company as long as it is funded properly.