Nearly 30% of covered workers are now enrolled in a high-deductible health plan (HDHP). This means a lot more people are also eligible to contribute to a Health Savings Account (HSA). HSAs have the unique feature of triple-tax-free savings when used as designed:

• HSA contributions are tax-deductible,
• HSA investments can grow tax-deferred, and
• HSA withdrawals are also exempt from taxes if spent on qualified medical expenses.

(Penalties: Funds withdrawn for non-healthcare expenses are taxable. If withdrawn before age 65, there is an additional 20% penalty.)

HDHPs have lower premiums in exchange for higher deductibles and higher out-of-pocket maximums. As of 2017, in order to qualify for an HSA, an HDHP must have a deductible of at least $1,300 for individual coverage or $2,600 for family coverage. Many people will use their HSA balance to cover current health expenses. However, if you can manage to pay for your current expenses out-of-pocket while also contributing to the HSA, you have the opportunity to maximize the tax advantages by investing the funds into long-term vehicles like stocks. Here are the annual contribution limits:

You can then use the future balance to pay for Medicare premiums or other eligible healthcare costs in retirement.

We personally don’t have an HDHP/HSA option from our employers, so I don’t have much first-hand experience. However, Morningstar just released an HSA research whitepaper by Leo Acheson that examined 10 of the largest HSA plan providers:

• Alliant Credit Union
• Bank of America
• BenefitWallet
• HealthSavings Administrators
• HealthEquity
• HSA Bank
• Optum Bank
• SelectAccount
• The HSA Authority
• UMB Bank

In terms of using an HSA simply as a way to grab the upfront tax break on contributions, you really just want to find an HSA provider that offers a checking account without monthly maintenance fees. Earning 0.50% APY on a $2,000 balance will earn you $10 a year, but a $4 monthly fee will cost you $48 a year. The top plans listed by Morningstar for this short-term purpose were Alliant Credit Union, SelectAccount, and The HSA Authority.

In terms of using an HSA as a portable, long-term investment vehicle (think “Healthcare IRA”), the top plans listed by Morningstar were Bank of America, HealthEquity, Optum, and The HSA Authority. However, as a firm believer in the “Costs Matter Hypothesis”, I would personally narrow it down based on the lowest overall expense ratios (underlying fund + manager fee). Here’s a chart comparing costs for a $15,000 balance (click to enlarge):

The same cost chart but for a $50,000 balance:

The two cheapest plans recommended by Morningstar are HSA Authority and HealthEquity. You can see that overall HSA costs are still higher than what you can get in a IRA or better 401(k) plan. At least the selection is pretty good. See HSA Authority investment options and HealthyEquity investment options [pdf]. Below is a sampling from the HealthEquity menu.

Keep in mind, this is not my list but what Morningstar recommends. One option not listed here is Saturna, which may make sense if you only plan on making a single lump-sum max contribution each year and buy an all-in-one Vanguard mutual fund with one transaction per year.

Please feel free to share your own experiences in the comments below.

After my initial post about Lemonade insurance, there was a discussion in the comments about how Lemonade’s business model compares with existing mutual insurance companies. Lemonade reached out to me and wanted to clarify some things, and I suggested that they write a guest post about the topic. Lemonade agreed and below is their response:

A Deeper Dive Into the Lemonade Business Model

Not all insurance companies work the same way. Beyond the technology and AI, behind its slick app and website, Lemonade’s different because its business model is different.

As opposed to traditional insurers, Lemonade takes a fixed 20% fee out of your monthly payments, pays reinsurance and other unavoidable expenses, and uses the rest for paying claims. If there’s money leftover, Lemonade returns it in the annual Giveback. Giveback is a unique feature of Lemonade, where each year leftover money is donated to causes our policyholders care about. Policyholders who care about the same causes are virtual groups of ‘peers.’ Lemonade uses the premiums collected from each peer group to pay the group’s claims, giving back any leftover money to their common cause. And, if the group’s claims exceed what’s left in the pool, reinsurance covers it! (Reinsurance = insurance for insurance companies!)

That changes everything.

Insurers typically make money by investing your premiums (“float”) and by paying out less in claims and expenses than they took in premiums (“underwriting profit”).

Lemonade relies on neither. We collect premiums monthly, so the money earns interest in your bank account, not ours, and we return unclaimed money to the causes customers care about at year’s end.

So what does Lemonade do with the remaining 80%?

In a nutshell: pays claims.

Lemonade spends approximately 20% buying ‘reinsurance’ from folks such as Lloyd’s of London, to ensure there will be enough money for claims even in ‘bad’ years. This kind of reinsurance buys peace of mind, but it is costly.

So our data scientists have modeled an optimal mix of internal and external ‘reinsurance’, and set aside another ~20% as the ‘Lemonade Reinsurance’. Think of it as a ‘rainy day fund.’ The costs of reinsurance fluctuate over time, and there are other smaller expenses (transactional fees, premium taxes and others) that are also paid out from this combined 40%.

The final 40% goes towards the Giveback to the cause selected each year, if none of the people who selected that cause make a claim.

Most years, there will be some claims, so the amount available for Giveback will average less than 40%. But our number crunchers tell us there should be a nice amount left for most causes most years.

What about the ‘bad’ years? Fear not. That’s what the reinsurance is for, and Lemonade Reinsurance as well as the reinsurance partners have set aside funds for exactly such a situation.

In short, job #1 is to make sure your claim is paid, job #2 is to Giveback what’s left.

Wait, so how is that different from mutual insurance, you may ask?

Lemonade is the oldest new idea in insurance. And whether you view its tech and user experience as being radically new, or its business model as centuries-old infrastructure, Lemonade is using technology to reconstitute a business model which was once prevalent.

Look at Uber or AirBnB: Neither have created spanking new markets. It’s their technology packaged with a sharing economy-esque business model that is novel. Similarly, there’s nothing new about renters and homeowners insurance, but the technology, together with the behavioral economics and unique business model, differentiate Lemonade from the rest. Lemonade writes policies on your phone in seconds, pays claims in minutes, gives back money to nonprofits, all using AI and other tech that incumbents have not used.

The mutual companies started with the notion that pooling people into meaningful communities, instead of meaningless masses, is better for consumers. But the mutuals of today have wandered off into a different direction from that sense of community that started hundreds of years ago.

What made mutuals stray this way? Well, if you take any community and you enlarge it with millions of anonymous people, the social bonds between the people break down. Insurance companies have tried to cope with the challenge of pursuing growth, but it came at the expense of group affinity.

Yet with technology, you don’t have to trade off affinity for growth. Specifically, affinity in Lemonade has spurred growth, and has not been an obstacle of growth. Think of Lemonade as having thousands of mutuals under one company, rather than being one giant mutual.

Lemonade is a Public Benefit Corporation, a certified B-Corp and our team genuinely wants to do the right thing. Lemonade takes a flat 20% fee so as to never be in conflict with our customers, and never make money by denying claims. By placing ‘unclaimed money’ beyond reach, we removed temptation, and changed the game.

That’s a first for insurance.

—

Get a free online quote from Lemonade and compare with what you have now if you live in California, New York, and Illinois.

While doing the research for my auto premium comparison post, I noticed that several of the state websites promoted an app called WreckCheck. Created by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), this free mobile app for iPhone and Android is one of those things you should download onto your phone now to hide away in some folder and hopefully never use.

More than simply a checklist, the app will guide you through the steps you should take following an accident. Ideally, it will keep you calm and collected in a time of stress. The app tells you what to do, and also what not to do. As a backup, you can also print out the checklist in PDF form.

Things you should do:

• Keep your vehicle information handy ahead of time (glovebox or in-app) including VIN, license plate number, insurance company, agent name, and policy number.
• Document the time and location of accident (uses your GPS).
• Take pictures of the accident, including damage to all vehicles involved (uses your camera).
• Document what happened, including vehicles and people involved (uses your audio recorder).
• Call the police (tap to call 911). If they are not dispatched, file an incident report.
• Share only your insurance card information, including name and insurance phone number. You are not even required to share your personal phone number.

Things you should NOT do:

• Share your home address or drivers license number.
• Allow someone to take or photocopy your ID.
• Admit fault.

The app can email a completed accident report directly to you and/or your insurance agent. Finally, the app provides tips on how to file and follow up on a claim. Here are some app screenshots and a explanatory video:

I would say that the insurance with the highest ratio of most-needed to least-bought would be long-term disability insurance. According to the Social Security Administration, just over 1 in 4 of today’s 20-year-olds will be become disabled at some point before reaching 67. According to a Harvard study, lost income due to illness was a contributor in 40.3% of all personal bankruptcies in the US. Here is a chart that shows the average duration of disability claims lasting more than 90 days, measured from the start of disability to (at most) age 65.

Sometimes your employer offers group LTD coverage, but what happens when you switch to another job that doesn’t have it, or you get disabled while unemployed? Not all group plans are convertible to individual policies. Finally, what if you are self-employed? Many people are freelance graphic designers, writers, and other hard-to-define jobs.

PolicyGenius is one of many sites that offer online insurance quotes, but their specialty is straightforward information and non-pushy quotes for “young, self-directed people”. They sell:

• Term life insurance
• Long-term disability insurance
• Renter’s insurance
• Pet health insurance

I have to admit, the fact that they actually listed “blogger” as a legitimate job was the spark that made me want to get a quote from them. I also liked that they only sell term life insurance, and not whole life, permanent life, or indexed-confusing-whatevernot.

Another plus is that they have quotes from all seven major LTD insurers, and the quotes you get should be identical to everyone else’s for the exact same policy from the exact same insurer. That is, there are no various levels of markup depending on where you buy it from, like there is for Tide detergent or a Toyota Camry. The commission to the seller is already baked into the premiums.

I applied for a long-term disability insurance quote, which they call “insurance for your paycheck”. PolicyGenius has a modern, comfortable user interface. First, they’ll ask for basic information like gender, birthdate, and state of residence. Click on any screenshot to enlarge.

Income. Usually a policy won’t pay more than about 50% to 60% of your current income. I’m guessing they don’t want to make it too appealing an option!

Health info. Pre-existing conditions are usually excluded. The worse your health, the more likely you’ll become disabled.

Monthly benefit. Obviously the higher that is, the higher your premium.

Waiting period. The longer you are willing to wait before claiming a disability, the lower your premium.

Benefit period. How long do you want to be able to claim benefits?

Additional riders. There are coverage options which you can add or remove.

I made a quote with my own personal details, but also an additional quote for the following theoretical situation. The quotes still require additional underwriting, meaning you’ll probably have to submit supporting financial documents and complete a physical examination (blood, urine, body measurements). Here’s a rough outline:

• Female, non-smoker, California resident, age 33.
• Current income $5,000 a month. Policy benefit $3,400 a month.
• Self-employed blogger for 5 years (classified as Reporters and Correspondents).
• 90 day waiting period, claim until age 65.
• Own occupation, residual disability, and non-cancelable.

After 3 business days, I was e-mailed a quote of $265 a month from Principal Financial Group for this situation. This was significantly higher than the $130 to $175 a month estimate that was given initially, and much higher than the $98 a month quote I got for myself. My guess is that my monthly benefit was relatively high at 68% of current salary? I have also read that women are quoted higher premium when statistically likely to have a baby since pregnancy causes a lot of disabilities. I wrote back to them asking what things I could tweak (like a lower monthly benefit and/or a 180-day waiting period) in order to get the premium down to around $100 a month.

If you do get a LTD quote yourself, be sure to read all the tips during the quote process and also wade through the entire detailed proposal package for what is excluded. My thoughts are to treat this as true insurance (as opposed to a payment plan), which means you are trying to just cover catastrophic events and hope to never make a claim. That means I tried to make the benefit just big enough, the waiting period as long as I could bear, but I kept the claim period to age 65 in case I become permanently disabled.

One thing to note about disability quotes is that the price is usually the same across all the different comparison sites. I chose to highlight PolicyGenius because it was easier to use and less intimidating than other places that I’ve tried. If you choose to run a quote through my link and actually purchase a policy, I may receive a commission. If you’ve gone through the individual long-term disability insurance process, please share your experiences in the comments.

The NYT Times Haggler just helped a reader who made two small claims on his homeowner’s insurance for (1) a fallen ceiling fan and (2) a stolen bike. Not only did State Farm deny both claims, but they subsequently refused to renew his insurance the next year! This is a unique circumstance, and I’ve heard of co-workers with similar problems. But of course the power of daylight again helped this lucky reader:

After the Haggler’s interactions with State Farm, Mr. Joseph sent an email to the Haggler with the subject line “It worked!” A representative at the company had contacted him and, in conversation, was much more forthcoming than Ms. Risinger. Mr. Joseph learned that in New York City, the average for homeowners is one claim every 38 years.

“Two in two years,” Mr. Joseph recalled this rep telling him, “that makes us concerned.” But after digging deeper into Mr. Joseph’s claims, the company decided that it wanted to keep him as a customer.

You should never make a claim for such small things like a stolen bike or broken appliance (especially if apparently it’s not even covered). Every claim you make will be recorded in an insurance database forever. As a result, if you’re not going to make a $500 or $1,000 claim, then why would you set your deductible to $250 or $500? Set it to $2,500 or higher if you can swing it. I’ve been inching ours up over the years, and I believe it is now $10,000 and even higher for natural disaster insurance. Enjoy the lower premiums, but remember to stock up your emergency fund in return. I used to have a special rider for my wife’s engagement ring, but cancelled that as soon as the value become “non-catastrophic” for our finances.

And we’ve all learned a valuable lesson: Homeowner’s insurance is for disasters. Which means that if you’re lucky, you’ll spend money on it for years and years and never get a dime back.

Exactly. Insurance is not an investment, a maintenance plan, or a replacement for properly securing your property. Insurance is there to protect you from something truly catastrophic happening, like your entire house burning down and them putting you up in a residential hotel for months while they rebuild it (which happened to our friends).

Bottom line: If you have homeowner’s insurance, you should set your deductible as high as you can tolerate. It should be a painful number. Take your premium savings and put it towards your cash reserves.