Insurance, How Importance Is It?

When it comes to the dentist you can be guaranteed of two things, the first is that you’ll have to visit one sometime in your lifetime, the second is it will cost a good amount of money. Sadly dental care isn’t covered by most health insurance policies; some however do provide supplemental dental insurance for an extra monthly cost. Many employers often provide group dental insurance for their employees. Now, most people will opt out of dental coverage from their employee benefits or health insurance plan to save money. Let’s face it, most of us don’t go to the dentist often or think we practice good enough oral care to not need to. The fact is you will eventually need to visit the dentist and without insurance it can cost a pretty penny. This article is going to go over why it’s important to have insurance coverage for dental care.

Proper oral hygiene is how you can prevent tooth decay and keep yourself out of the dentist office. However, even if you practice the strictest oral hygiene and avoid all sugary foods and drinks you’ll eventually end up in the dentist office. While you think “Hey, I take great care of my teeth, so I don’t need to worry about cavities” you might get a rude awakening when you accidentally trip or get into accident and chip or break tooth. While you’ve gone to great lengths to avoid the dentist with proper oral hygiene you can’t avoid accidents that can break, dislodge or crack a tooth. In a situation where that happens you’ll need to visit a dentist and let me tell you it’s going to easily cost you $1,000 if you need to replace a tooth and get a dental implant; maybe that $15.00 a month dental insurance deduction from your paycheck might be worth it.

Don’t let me lure you into a false hope either, just because you have dental insurance doesn’t mean you won’t have to ante up some money at the dentist office. There are 3 major types of dental insurance, PPO, HMO and discount plans. A PPO dental plan allows you to visit any dentist within your network, but you’ll have a deductible and a maximum annual coverage amount. A HMO dental plan requires you to choose one dentist as your primary care dentist, but there is no deductible or maximum annual coverage amount; you do have to make co-pays for each service. A discount plan just simply gives you a discount of specific services depending on dental care required.

When you look to obtain a business insurance quote you will either be asked to declare certain information or complete a proposal form. This information will be used to provide you with a quotation and should you choose to accept the quote and accept an insurance policy, this information will form the basis of the policy that is taken out.

It is a two way street between you, the business owner and the commercial insurer. You declare information, including sums insured’s, values, security and construction details and an insurer then provides a contract of insurance which outlines their obligations to you, usually financial or re-instatement, in the event of an insured peril operating. This will also apply, in a business sense, to commercial property owners insurance.

For many businesses nowadays, their insurance will define the types of security that needs to be in place. Usually, depending on the amount of stock and it’s theft attractiveness and/or the value of other contents (such as business computers), you will be required to have an intruder alarm.

Now, we are not intruder alarm or security experts. But you can appreciate that “intruder alarm”, could mean anything from a top of the range system that tells an alarm company via GSM that there is an intruder all the way down to a system that you buy from the local DIY store for 50 and self install.

Many, many years ago, intruder alarms were all just audible only. A metal bell on the outside of the building usually rang when there was a break in. Thieves decided that the best way to deal with this was to use spray foam and fill the bell with this. Then, they would go back a few hours later, break in and the bell would not make a sound. Things have of course moved on. But, the self installed system is not as good as a professionally installed, and annually maintained, intruder alarm system.

So, when you are asked by your business insurance broker to declare whether or not you have an intruder alarm system, ask them exactly what type of system is required. Even if you take over a new premises, and there is a defunct system in place, it can usually be taken over by an approved company. Whilst wireless seems to be everywhere nowadays, intruder alarms that work through wires tend to have less innocent activations.

It is important to check any quote you receive to see whether the system needs to be audible only (one that just rings) or one that it monitored by either yourself (ie one that dials a mobile upon activation) or by an alarm company.

Also, there are two main bodies which monitor, approve and allow intruder alarm companies to be members, if they meet certain criteria. It is much more likely that your commercial insurance company will want the alarm to be installed, and importantly maintained (usually once a year) by a company that is a member of one of these bodies. They are either the National Security Inspectorate (which was NACOSS) or the SSAIB (Security Systems and Alarms Installation Body).