ACCIDENT STORIES
Joshua’s Accident Insurance Covered His Broken Arm
It’s scary how quickly a day can start out just like any other only to take an unexpected and expensive turn for the worst when you’re not even looking. That’s how Yvonne’s day began as she headed out to take care of errands and shopping. She planned to relax later while Joshua, her 8-year-old son, played around the corner from home at a neighborhood child’s birthday party.
Thinking all she had left to do was walk over to the party and escort Joshua home, Yvonne was looking forward to a restful break. Wrong! In just two hours, she was at Urgent Care having her son’s arm and wrist x-rayed after he had jumped off a platform. His two fractures healed nicely in about 5 weeks, but it took a lot longer to heal their bank account.
Yvonne and her husband had just decided they would get an accident insurance plan to cover the whole family, but they tried to save a few dollars by starting the plan the first of next month. Joshua got hurt two days too soon – on the 28th of the month before they got the plan. Those two days ended up costing them $2,500 for doctor bills, medication, rehab, urgent care and x-rays.
A $5,000 accident insurance plan for the whole family only costs $35 a month and it would have paid for 100 percent of Joshua’s bill with only a $100 deductible. Just a couple of days cost them $2,400! Protection against the unexpected is really what insurance is all about, and accident health insurance can be as low as $22 a month for individual coverage that will pay for 100 percent of your medical bills after a low $100 deductible.
How A Health Savings Account Plan And An Accident Insurance Plan Can Work Together Nicely
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that a 2005 Harvard study found that medical bills were the leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. What you may not realize is that medical debt can pile up even if you have health insurance. That’s because more and more people are turning to high-deductible plans in exchange for lower premiums than traditional plans have, which begin your coverage sooner.
While you’re young and healthy, it may seem like a good idea to weigh the low premiums of high-deductible health insurance against the odds of being struck by a major illness. You probably won’t need much healthcare, right? Unfortunately, active young people may be even more likely to suffer sport-related accidents than older folks.
It’s not all bad news, though. Broken lower legs used to be the most common injury among skiers, but that’s down by 95 percent from just 35 years ago. Since 2003, there’s also been a 35-percent decrease in serious knee injuries and experts attribute this to the switch to shorter skis. In contrast, mid-shaft tibia fractures have been increasing for 20 years and this appears to be related to a change in ski-binding boot systems. Having your skies inspected by a qualified ski technician may help.
What if you don’t beat the odds? With high-deductible health insurance, you could be stuck with possibly thousands of dollars in medical debt even if you’ve never been sick a day in your life unless…you’re covered with personal accident insurance.
For $22 a month, you can get 100-percent coverage for accident-related medical bills up to $5,000. Even though you have a $5,000 deductible on your health insurance to get a low premium, you’d still only pay $100 after your skiing accident because your accident health insurance would take care of you.
Audrey’s Gamble With An Accident Insurance Plan Pays Off
Audrey doesn’t rock climb, skateboard, or ski. She just rides her bike slowly around the neighborhood so she didn’t even think about looking into personal accident insurance. She and her husband do like to visit the mountain casinos and try to win enough to pay for their weekend out and bring home a little extra. They’re really more interested in getting out of town for a couple of days, so they don’t expect to win big. They’ve been doing this for years without mishap, and that made their last trip such a surprise.
Audrey didn’t even realize her hip was broken at first. She just thought the pain was from the bruising, or maybe she had sprained something. After all, she was just standing in a casino when someone in a “surprisingly quiet” motorized wheelchair ran into her from behind. She didn’t see or hear him coming so she didn’t step out of the way, and in a second she was lying on the floor.
When the pain didn’t get better, x-rays revealed she had indeed fractured her hip. It took about three months of walking with a cane before she was back on her bike again. Now, she knows that accidents don’t just happen to athletes. Who would have thought you could get hurt physically in a casino?
It turns out that Audrey never lost as much money gambling for fun as she lost to her medical bills for that one fall. Now a $22 premium for $5,000 worth of accident insurance coverage is looking like a pretty good bet.
Karen Knows How Handy Accident Health Insurance Can Be
Karen couldn’t believe she had broken a bone in her foot. She just stepped off the curb wrong and didn’t even fall. Still, her foot continued to hurt until she finally gave up and saw a doctor who confirmed her worst fear – something was broken.
We can be experiencing bone loss for many years without noticing any symptoms until the first sign is a broken bone. In fact, people often don’t know they have osteoporosis until a bone actually breaks or fractures, and any bone can be affected by osteoporosis.
What happened to Karen wasn’t as surprising as it seems. More than 10 million of us in the U.S. already have osteoporosis that weakens bone, and it’s estimated that about an additional 18 million people who don’t have actually have osteoporosis yet have still lost some bone mass. More than 80 percent of the people affected are women, and osteoporosis results in more than 1.5 million fractures a year.
Had Karen ever thought about personal accident insurance until she experienced first-hand how easy it is to get hurt in day-to-day life? If she had, she never gave it a second thought. She worked at an office job. Her favorite sport was hiking, and she didn’t think she was involved in anything strenuous enough to result in broken bones.
The reality is that one half of women and one out of eight men over 50 will suffer a fracture that can be traced to osteoporosis, even though they never see it coming. Now, Karen knows how handy accident health insurance can be.
Greg’s Romantic Outing Saved By His Accident Insurance Plan
If you’re young and healthy, personal accident insurance is probably the last thing on your mind. That’s how it was with Greg until his special date took a surprising wrong turn. Even though Greg didn’t know how to skate, he thought he’d do ok. After all he was 23, athletic and healthy. So, he took his girlfriend skating as a special surprise.
Actually, he was doing pretty well for his first time skating until he realized his cell phone was ringing. The next thing he knew, he was face down on the ice and bleeding. All he could remember was looking down to find his phone, but that split second could have cost him a lot. He needed a cat scan and 20 stitches, and he went home with a sutured face and medical debt amounting to $2,139.
Although the trip to the E.R. did spoil the romantic weekend he had planned, that huge bill didn’t wreck his bank account. His mom was an insurance agent who made sure he was covered with accident health insurance. His accident plan reimbursed him for 100 percent of the E.R. trip, except for a small $100 deductible. You can bet he kept up with his $22-a-month premium after that!
Gravity Can’t Bring Down An Accident Insurance Plan
We really take gravity for granted, don’t we? Just lose your balance for a single second, and gravity is strong enough to smack you to the ground before you know what’s happening.
Christy was just running errands in the winter, and thought she’d run into the bank on her way home. Even though the road hadn’t seemed too slick, when she parked in the lot and got out of her car, black ice was right under her feet and down she went.
Like many people today, Christy had a high-deductible policy to save on premiums. Could she afford to pay to see a doctor? As too many people are, she was afraid to find out what it would cost to get x-rayed to see if anything was broken. She climbed back into her car and decided to wait and see how she’d feel tomorrow.
Christy was one of the many people who hadn’t heard about personal accident insurance. For falls, broken bones, and many other common accidents, accident health insurance can pay for all the exams, x-rays, splints or casts a common fall can bring. Christy was really surprised to learn that accident insurance only costs a fraction of what standard health insurance costs, but an accident plan can pay for $5,000, $7,500 or even $10,000 worth of accident healthcare. Learn the “How-To’s” of accident insurance.
Let An Accident Insurance Plan Take The Surprise Out of Injuries
Accidents can surprise us even when we’re in the middle of a crowd at a local event where we expect great care has been taken to keep everyone safe. That was the story last 4th of July at Palmyra Middle School in Pennsylvania.
Luckily, no one was seriously injured when firework charges misfired and created an explosion that shot firework material over an area where people were celebrating the borough’s 250th anniversary with games and rides. Fireworks were even propelled across a football field.
Four children between the ages of 11 and 17 and seven adults suffered burns, bruises and scrapes, but no injuries were life threatening. By Monday morning, all except one adult and one minor had been released from the hospital.
When you’re off to the 4th of July fireworks, you not going to think about personal accident insurance. The main reason we have any form of insurance is to be prepared for the unexpected. Accident health insurance can protect you from medical bills when you car insurance and Health Savings Account insurance plan doesn’t. You’ll find that accident insurance is a lot less expensive, too.
Accident Insurance Is No Roller Coaster Ride
It’s hard to predict the future. That’s why so many were shocked when the “Wacky Worm” kids’ roller coaster ride went wackier than ever before at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, CA. Five children and two adults escaped with only minor injuries when a chain broke loose to smack people in the face and on their upper body as the 20 mph ride ran them into the chain
Ten-year-old Shannon McNamara said, “Me and my friend ducked.” Riding in the last car, they managed to duck and cover their heads to avoid the chain. According to Alameda County Fire Asst. Chief Alan Evans, people got off the ride with “cuts, bumps and bruises,” but many were “covered in black grease.”
The Alameda County Fire Department said only one child and one adult needed to go to Valley Medical Center, and the ride was shut down for inspection. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health later cleared the ride to be repaired and put back into use.
The carnival rides were scheduled for daily inspections and the chain was only about three months old. It just goes to show that accidents happen in spite of our best intentions. Wouldn’t it be great to have low-premium, high-deductible health insurance and still have such minor medical bills covered? For less than $25 a month, personal accident insurance pays for up to $5,000 for accidental injuries. You can get accident insurance with a low $100 deductible, too.
People On America’s Funnies Home Videos Could Use An Accident Insurance Plan
There’s a reason why America’s funniest home videos has been on TV for years. Maybe, it’s because there’s a never-ending supply of common accidents that can happen to any of us at any time. Even conditioned and trained professional athletes are surprised by freak accidents.
Sammy Sosa, the one-time Chicago Cubs slugger, just sneezed twice in front of teammates, media and fans at the PETCO Park visitor’s clubhouse. He had to grab a chair for support and actually injured his back.
Soccer goalkeeper Lionel Letizi was used to reaching and stretching to cover the large net area, but that exercise didn’t protect him during a board game of Scrabble. He threw his back out just by bending over to pick up a piece that had fallen to the floor.
When Adam Eaton was with the Padres, he managed to hurt himself while trying to rip the plastic off a new DVD. He accidentally stabbed himself in the stomach with a pairing knife and had to go to the emergency room for stitches.
The point is that minor accidents are inflicted on almost everyone whether you’re in great shape or not. Accident insurance is an inexpensive way to be prepared for those unexpected medical bills that might not be covered until you’ve met your health insurance deductible. Accident health insurance has a low $100 deductible on both personal accident insurance and family plans.
Accident Insurance That Is Not Addicted To Stress
This may sound familiar. “I didn’t trip or anything. I was just walking down the hall, in a hurry, and I went around the corner and it suddenly felt like somebody hit me in the ankle with a baseball bat.” That’s the experience a 46-year-old related to the emergency room doctor in Madison, Wisconsin.
Stress fractures are a big problem because we just don’t see them coming. In our hectic, stressful workdays, we tend to have more accidents because we’re distracted and rushed.
A 36-year-old freelance writer from Seattle has noticed that, “I have more accidents whenever I’m stressed and distracted.” Christine recalls, “Once I fell into a ditch and sprained my ankle and two days later hit myself in the back with my car door and injured my shoulder blade.”
The author of “Addicted to Stress: A Woman’s 7-Step Program to Reclaim Joy and Spontaneity in Life,” reminds us that when we’re under stress, we aren’t paying attention to what we’re doing or where we’re going. Debbie Mandel says, “We’re all so busy, we go from chore to chore, and while we’re doing one chore, we’re thinking about what we’re going to be doing two hours from now.”
That’s all you need to find yourself in the emergency room, and that big bill will just add to your stress unless you are ready with personal accident insurance. Unlike vehicle accident insurance, accident health insurance covers you whenever you may get hurt. There’s another important difference between the two as well. Personal accident insurance costs a whole lot less.