Supplemental Benefits: A Conversation Worth Having

Throughout my career, I've spent years talking to employers and their employees about the value of benefits. I could easily explain how accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity plans work. I could walk through gap-filling scenarios and coverage structures all day long. But there's a difference between understanding what these products do and knowing firsthand what they mean.

A little over a year ago, I got that firsthand experience. And it changed how I talk about the need for voluntary benefits.

It Started With a Baseball Game

My boys and I were at a little league game for one of my older sons. My six-year-old, like any kid with a free afternoon, found a group of new friends almost immediately. And like any group of six-year-olds, they quickly decided that climbing up the bleachers and jumping from them was the best possible use of their time.

On one of those jumps, my son came down hard and hit his face and fractured his orbital bone. He needed surgery to repair it, but he came through it all with some news friends and a smile on his face.

During my son's pre-operation process, the medical team ran routine heart tests. They flagged what they thought might be a heart murmur. They told us not to panic, but recommended we follow up once our son had recovered.

Naturally, my wife and I were shaken, but we were beyond grateful that he was safe. And when the bills started coming, we were grateful we had our accident insurance to put toward some of costs.

That could have been the end of the story. But it wasn't.

A Diagnosis We Never Saw Coming

After my son healed up, we took him to a children's hospital for further evaluation on his potential heart murmur. He underwent some additional testing, and the results that came back were something we couldn't have anticipated: our son had an Atrial Septal Defect, commonly called ASD. A hole in his heart.

As a parent, there is really no way to fully prepare for a moment like that. My wife and I were terrified. We spent the days that followed meeting with care teams, reviewing surgical plans, and figuring out how to explain to our child what was going to happen. There was so much to process, and the last thing either of us wanted to be distracted by was the financial side of it.

Fortunately, we didn't have to be. Our critical illness coverage stepped in for the surgery. Our hospital indemnity plan covered his recovery, which ran close to a week. We were able to stay focused on our son and on our family, not on what this was going to cost us.

Fast forward to today, he's now seven years old, happy, energetic, and doing exactly what seven-year-olds should be doing (not jumping off bleachers). Now, all he needs are regular check-ups to make sure everything continues to look good.

Why This Matters for the Conversations You're Having

I'm sharing this because I think about the version of this that happens without coverage, and it's a harder one to sit with.

Even with strong major medical insurance, out-of-pocket costs for surgeries, inpatient stays, and specialized care can be significant. These benefits aren't a replacement for that medical coverage; they work alongside it, picking up where it leaves off.

For a lot of families, that difference is what determines whether a health crisis stays a medical crisis or becomes a financial one, too. That can be a meaningful thing to offer someone. And the reality is, you never know who is sitting across from you at an enrollment meeting and what they may be quietly managing.

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So, when you're in front of a client who isn't sure whether to offer a voluntary accident plan, or a client who thinks critical illness coverage is something they'll figure out later, my story is yours to use.

These products gave my family the space to focus on what mattered most when it mattered most. That's the case I'd make to any employer considering whether they need to offer these benefits to their employees. And it's the reason I feel as confident as I do about what we're offering.