Insurance....Yuck....

I hate dealing with insurance. Car insurance, house insurance, medical insurance, life insurance, all of it just makes my head spin. I don't understand a lot of it, and because I don't understand it, I feel stupid, and if there's anything I hate in this world, it's feeling stupid.

I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but in our county the open enrollment for insurance is a big old pain in the butt. And it changes every year. A couple of times they sent a representative out to meet with each and every employee just to make sure we clicked all the clicks and checked all the checks and boxed all the boxes. This year we had to go it alone, but it seemed a fairly simple process. I did mine early (like always), but there was a wave of panic as the deadline approached. Then the system crashed, the deadline was extended, and I ignored most of those emails. Then we got an email saying that even if we thought we had finished the enrollment we might not have done everything required, and I got paranoid. I emailed our secretary and asked her how we would know, and she said they would send a follow-up email and she would let us know.

I never heard anything, and I confirmed (at least to myself) that I had printed two different confirmations. But I still worried (am still worrying) that I might have made a mistake and both Hubby and I would be without insurance for the coming year. Maybe it's because in the past Hubby has provided his own insurance, but now that he's retired it's all on me.

Hubby and I have to fill out an online health survey in order to get some extra money put in our flexible spending account. And since I just had to pay one-half of an almost-thousand-dollar crown (in my mouth, not on my head where it belongs), I need all the flexible spending dollars I can get. The online health survey was a challenge all by itself! First I couldn't figure out how to set up a profile for Hubby, so I called Customer Service rather than get frustrated. Naturally as soon as I had a real live human being on the phone, it worked beautifully and I felt stupid. Again.

I had to start taking medicine to lower my cholesterol, and it's expensive. But I got a handy-dandy little $4 copay card from my doctor, which lowered my cost to only $61.76!!!! I'm not exactly sure where the $4 comes in. I called the pharmaceutical company, and they said there is a cap of $50 on that card, which they paid, otherwise I would have had to pay $111.76. What a bargain! It makes no senses to me whatsoever.

Don't even get me started on deductibles, copay amounts, allowed expenses, and all that jazz.

I need another college degree just to figure out the insurance needs in my household. I'd rather do our income taxes every single month than deal with insurance.

Maybe I should have chosen a less stress-inducing blog topic. I have to go to the doctor tomorrow.