Insurance World

It might be midget league football. It might be little league baseball. It might be the high school cheerleading squad. Whatever it is, your children probably feel as if it’s the NFL, MLB, or the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. You, and the rest of your town, probably support your children just as fervently as if they were playing in those big-time sports.

Yes, we Americans love our sports.

They’re enjoyable to play and exciting to watch. Players and spectators alike take pleasure in sports; however, sports are sometimes more than just fun and games. Sometimes sports are injuries waiting to happen. Many times sports injuries go beyond sprained ankles and broken bones to the more serious sports injuries such as concussions and paralysis.

That’s why it’s so important for your children to have good health insurance. Although sports are fun, any child playing any kind of sport is at risk for injury – mild or major. If your daughter falls off the top of a cheerleading pyramid, or your son doesn’t jump right up after being tackled on the field, the school and the on-site medical personnel, including local ambulances that are always present at school sporting events, are going to do everything they can to help. But once your child gets to the emergency room, who’s going to pay the doctor bill? Your health insurance.

These days, many schools require all students wishing to participate in a school sport to provide evidence of health insurance. This means that you, Mom and Dad, get to fill out some paperwork or even drag out a copy of the insurance card. You don’t want to deny your child the chance to participate in school sports, just as you don’t want to get slammed with an outrageous doctor bill in the event of an accident.

You can’t always be by their sides protecting them, but you can make sure your children have adequate health insurance.

It is now estimated the average couple will need over $200,000 in retirement just to cover medical expenses. Health savings accounts are now giving people serious incentives to take care of their health so that money will be there when they need it in old age.

Health savings accounts are tax-favored accounts where someone with a qualifying high-deductible health plan can deposit money to be used for future medical expenses. The money can be withdrawn any time to pay medical expenses tax-free. Those who stay healthy and don’t withdraw the money benefit from tax-deferred growth, just like with an IRA.

Many experts now believe that 85-90% of all health problems are self-induced, and can be easily avoided if you understand how. By avoiding the most common diseases that affect modern Americans, you can delay having to take money out of your HSA, and take great advantage of the tax-deferred growth. Over a 20 year period, tax-deferred growth and tax-free use of your money to pay medical expenses during retirement could yield a 30% better return than a taxable investment.

Metabolic Syndrome: The Preventable Diseases That Almost Everyone Gets

One out of every five Americans, 45% of those in their 60’s, and two-thirds of overweight people have metabolic syndrome. An astounding 70% of Americans have at least one symptom.

The symptoms of metabolic syndrome include elevated fasting blood sugar, high LDL cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, and a waist circumference of 34 inches or more. Three of the top five causes of death - diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease - are all related to metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome could also be thought of as “pre-diabetes”. Of the cancers, prostate and breast cancer are particularly correlated with metabolic syndrome. And metabolic syndrome will soon overtake cigarette smoking as the number one risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Yet the diseases of metabolic syndrome are almost entirely preventable by simply eating a good diet, exercising, and maintaining a normal body weight. Do so, and you avoid paying for the medications that everyone else is taking. Even more importantly, you avoid the surgery, hospitalization, rehab, and all the other expenses that come with a heart attack, stroke, colon cancer, and other related health problems.

If you are withdrawing several hundred dollars a year from your HSA to pay for cholesterol medication and blood pressure medication and other drugs, you’re going to have a difficult time growing the account. But if you stay healthy, and invest most of your money in a good mutual fund, you could easily accumulate over $500,000 in a 25 year period.

HSAs reward personal responsibility. Those who save for the future and maintain healthy lifestyle habits will be rewarded with both health and wealth in their old age.