With accident insurance, if you crash, you get cash. It’s a type of insurance that pays you directly if you get hurt unexpectedly.
Accident insurance is designed as extra coverage on top of your health insurance plan. Money from a claim can be used to pay for medical costs not covered by your health insurance policy, like your deductible.
But you don’t have to pay medical bills with your accident insurance cash. You can use the money for whatever you need.
Don’t just take our word for it. Buddy Insurance interviewed 83 Arizonans at a 2019 event to understand how they would use a cash windfall if they got injured. Here’s what they said.
2% - Childcare or Petcare While Recovering
A few respondents said their health insurance plans were comprehensive enough to cover all or most of their medical costs if they were in an accident. But because they are parents (of human or furry children) they recognized that medical bills for themselves may be just the beginning.
A recovery means it would be some time before they were back to work, back to having fun, and back to fully caring for those who depend on them.
Money from accident insurance can be used to cover childcare or pet care while you focus on bouncing back.
6% - Travel Expenses
Some respondents said they would use money from accident insurance to cover travel expenses. If you get injured a plane ride (or two) from home you can use cash from Buddy to cover airline booking change fees if you need more recovery time before you travel.
11% - Fixing or Replacing Damaged Gear
Several respondents liked the idea of having cash on hand to replace expensive gear in the event of an accident.
If skiing, mountain biking, or road cycling are your activities of choice, accident insurance can protect expensive gear investments that may be lost or damaged when you wipe out.
53% - Medical Bills
Still, more than half of respondents recognized that they would likely need and want help covering medical bills in the event of an accident.
In the US, it is common to have what is called a high deductible healthcare plan (HDHP) for health insurance. As defined by the IRS, HDHPs are health insurance plans with a deductible of $1,350 or more. The deductible is the amount of money you pay before your insurance provider begins to pay. You may not be required to pay toward your deductible for routine care like an annual check-up, but you will likely be on the hook if you end up in the emergency room after an unexpected injury.
Accident insurance can help cover this otherwise expensive gap in your health insurance plan.
28% - Other Bills
Finally, more than a quarter of respondents said they would use cash from accident insurance to cover bills beyond the obvious.
Maybe they anticipate needing help paying basic bills like rent or the mortgage while being out of work recovering.
Maybe they figure if they’re badly injured they lost a bet with a friend that they could land that one jump. Either way, with accident insurance the cash is yours to cover whatever costs you’re facing.
Buddy Survey: On what would you spend the money from an accident insurance claim?
How would you use the money from an accident insurance claim? Would you be like most people and use accident insurance to add coverage to an existing health insurance plan? Do you want the satisfaction of knowing that if you get hurt at least your wallet is safe from the “hidden” costs of an accident? Something else entirely?
It’s all possible. With accident insurance money is paid to you directly and you decide how to spend it. And with Buddy Insurance--the only on-demand accident insurance--you can sign up same day for exactly as much coverage as you need--one day all the way up to one year.
Happy (and safe) adventuring.
Hunter Pechin originally wrote this post for Buddy's blog. Hunter is a Fractional Marketer and Strategist based in Richmond, VA.
