Tennessee Living

About the Author - Anthony Kimbrough

Family Security columnist Anthony Kimbrough is vice president, government relations for Tennessee Farmers Insurance Cos.

It’s a funny-looking Cat in the Hat cup, but the nice folks at the bank won’t like it because it’s the third cup right now. The other two beside it are already brimming over with pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. At the end of each day, I toss what change I find in my pockets into the cup, a habit I inherited from my father. Eventually, my months of saving all go into a bag, and I’m off to the bank to see how closely I guessed to the amount.

I’ll admit it’s become a game for me, watching a little change here and there add up substantially. Last family vacation, it went a long way toward paying for a beach condo. Tightwad that I am, that was pretty cool.

Recently, two things happened in the same day that caused me to wax philosophical about the change-collecting habit. One, my teenage daughter – completely out of the blue – told me she had started her own change pile, and it was growing. I was impressed and a bit proud that she is following in her dad’s footsteps, though I suspect it might also have been a veiled suggestion that her allowance is woefully shy of where it should be.

And secondly, a report came across my desk at work that made spare change seem insignificant: In one month’s time, 10 individual health claims totaling nearly $2.4 million had been filed with TRH Health Plans. Two claims totaled more than $500,000 each, and, maybe most startling of all, was that four of those 10 claims were for children, which alone accounted for $1.6 million.

Discounts, negotiated partly due to the strength of having nearly 200,000 people covered, enabled that $2.4 million to be reduced by $1 million-plus, and then TRH paid about $1.2 million of the remaining balance.

As I studied the report, I recalled a handful of conversations over the past two or three years with TRH members. Often prompted by notification that premiums would increase to keep pace with rising health-care costs, members inevitably offer a phrase something like this: “I’ve been paying premiums to you folks for a long time and hardly ever have any claims,” or “We’ve not filed a claim this year.”

Their point is very understandable, especially when health-care costs continue to outpace virtually everything else. But because we also get the other side of the story – told by individuals and families like those 10 claims – we realize such a complaint misses the mark.

It fails to account for the unexpected and tragic health issues that occur each day, the kind of costly situations that, without health-care coverage, would financially bankrupt an already emotionally bankrupt family.

It may sound too flippant, even when it’s not intended to be, for us to simply respond to complaints about cost by saying, “Be grateful you haven’t had claims.” Unfortunately we know those who have, and yet we are pleased we can be a financial safety net for them.

The policies offered by TRH Health Plans are an opportunity for folks to have “something in the cup.” It’s not exactly pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, but it adds up remarkably when that health issue you’d hoped would never occur actually does happen. 

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Magazine:
Tennessee Home & Farm, Summer 2010 Edition Edition

Headline:
Making Cents

Summary:
Health-care costs, like change cups, can add up.

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