Financial Crooks

A few years ago, my husband’s employer was taken over by another company. It didn’t take long for the benefits to get cut: we went from having good dental and medical coverage, and high life and disability insurance to being told we could buy selected benefits using a “shopping cart” funded with a percentage of his annual salary. Sound familiar to anyone else? Anyway, while reading the benefits info again recently, I began to wonder if we are actually losing money on the orthodontic coverage provided for our children.

Dental Plans May Strictly Limit Reimbursement for Orthodontic Work

The problem for the insurance company is that orthodontic work is expensive. It’s also becoming very common: to the point where no one teases kids about their braces any more because they see them on teeth in dozens of mouths. In fact when one of my children’s friends had braces put on, many of her classmates didn’t notice, and even when they did they couldn’t remember if she’d had them on for a year or if they were new.

So to reduce how much dental insurance plans have to pay out, or conversely to keep from having to raise the premiums unacceptably high, many plans limit the coverage for orthodontic work.

Our plan pays nothing for orthodontic work for adults.

For dependant children, it has set a maximum lifetime claim of $1500 per child.

Have you checked the price for a regular course of treatment for orthodontic work? Let’s just say $1500 isn’t going to get you through the first appointment much less the following two years.

How Our Dental Plan and Premiums Work

Our dental plan has another interesting twist:

If you want ANY dental coverage for your child, you have to insure all of your children and you must pay the orthodontic premium for each child.

That sounds reasonable at first glance: they don’t want you only paying premiums for your child with enamel problems and teeth coming in everywhere but where they are needed, and not paying premiums for your three other children who have perfect teeth and never need even a filling or a polishing.

It’s when you look into the details of that “orthodontic premium for each child” that you wince.

And they charge an orthodontic premium for each year of your child’s life until they are 19.

How Much Premium Will I Pay for Orthodontics?

Under our plan, for our family, the orthodontic premium is currently $140.40 per year.

So someone with two children enrolled from birth till when the premiums stop being applied when each child turns 19, should expect to pay $2667.60 or more in premiums.

That doesn’t even assume that the premiums increase. For us, it’s increased, of course, even in the four years we’ve had this insurer from $111.36 to $140.40 per year. That’s about a 26% which is well above the rate of inflation these past 4 years.

Will We Lose Money Paying Our Orthodontic Premiums for Our Dental Plan

If we had been enrolled in this plan for years, then yes, we would definitely have lost money. We would have paid over $2667.60 in premiums to get a maximum reimbursement of $1500 for our one child who needs orthodontics.

In our case, though, we were only forced into this plan when our children were older. Will we still lose money?

Yep. Assuming no further premium increases, and based on the actual premiums we’ve paid to date, we will pay $1508.64 in premiums to get back the $1500 for which our one child is eligible.

Sigh.

Benefits? Who called this beneficial? For us to have to give money to the insurance company?

I can just imagine how any employee feels who has several children who never need orthodontics!

Admittedly, there should be a benefit to someone who has several children who need orthodontic work done.

Why Would We Get Dental Coverage for Our Children If We’re Going to Lose Money on the Orthodontic Premium?

First, in our plan you can’t opt out of coverage for your children unless you can prove they have coverage under another plan. (I’m not sure whether you could fight this in a court or not.)

Second, the dental insurance also provides coverage for all of the other more routine dental work a child needs: cleanings, fillings, x-rays, examinations etc.

I believe we are saving money by having coverage for those procedures although I would have to start adding up our bills to be sure as our children have been blessed with very healthy teeth.

Well, at least we’re saving money–unless we could not convince our dentist to drop his billing rate…. Some dentists will charge less for the same procedure if you have no insurance. They don’t have to, of course, but they may.

Keep an Eye on Your Benefits and Make Sure They’re Benefitting YOU and Not the Insurer

This review has taught me that it’s important to keep an eye on our benefits. For example, if I was a younger parent I might very well be lobbying our HR department to make changes to this Orthodontic insurance premium. Like dropping it altogether!

I think I’d better check our Eye Health coverage next. Something makes me wonder if we’re breaking even on that coverage or not. And at least that coverage can be waived if we’re losing money!

Related Reading

Join In
Do you ever check your benefits to determine if you’re paying more than you’re getting back? Have you successfully lobbied for changes in coverage? Please share your views with a comment.

The other day I was paying my bill at Longo’s and the cashier asked me if I’d like to redeem some of my Longo’s points. I had been collecting them since their promotion was launched but I’d never bothered to find out what, if anything, they were worth. I said sure, and was pleasantly surprised to get $50 off my bill. As I unloaded the groceries at home, I began to wonder what each of the chains in my vicinity had to offer grocery shoppers.

Many of these chains also offer short term promotions and rewards. For example in 2014, Sobeys has a program for collecting points towards discounts on Jamie Oliver merchandise. I won’t be covering those types of programs here: I’m just interested in the “I bought my groceries and they swiped my card and here’s what I can or might get.”

Some of these stores also offer credit cards that earn points. I’m not covering those here either.

Why Only South-Central Ontario Grocery Reward Information?

I should have realized that grocery stores do things differently across Canada. After all (thirty years ago anyway) in Calgary you could buy potato chips in boxes and strawberries in bulk but in eastern Ontario you had to buy chips in bags and a collection of strawberries that contained ripe perfect, unripe and bruised fruit all jammed into one plastic container.

So when I started researching, I realized this article would explode into a massive mess of contradictory offerings if I tried to cover all of the provinces and territories.

And to be honest, I also don’t know the names of all of the common and popular grocery chains in various places. Maybe I’ll be able to do a follow-up sometime of other provinces. In the meantime, my apologies to those living elsewhere!

What Rewards Does Fortinos / Loblaws / Real Canadian Superstore s Offer?

It appears that what Loblaws now offers is a PC Plus Program. This is a free card or a free app.

You will be sent personalized offers to earn points. You have to load the offers and then buy those items at the store. When you make your purchase you earn points.

The points can be redeemed to get $ off your next bill. There is no incentive to accumulate lots of points before redeeming.

The minimum redemption is 20 000 points for $20 off your bill.
You must redeem points in groups of 10 000 if you redeem more than 20 000. You can’t redeem 25 000 points, for example.

Your points are forfeited if you don’t use your account for two years. I was surprised by that.

Frankly, this sounds like a bit of a pain to me. The offers are not automatically loaded: you have to remember to do so.

What Rewards Does Longo’s Offer?

Longo’s has a free Thank You Rewards card. You swipe the card when you are paying for your purchases.

You earn 50 Thank Your Rewards points for every $25 you spend per week at Longo’s.

So, for example, if you spend $48 on a Wednesday and $3 on Thursday, you will get 100 points. But if you don’t spend that $3 till Monday, you’ll only get 50 points.

As with many other stores, you can earn “bonus” points by purchasing various products.
The Thank You Reward points can be redeemed for cash off your next purchase. As with Sobeys, there is an incentive to waiting to redeem your points. For example

2200 points saves you $10 off your bill, so each point is worth about 0.45 of a cent.
4000 points saves you $20 off your bill, so each point is worth about 0.50 of a cent.

What Rewards Does Metro Offer?

Metro doesn’t run its own reward card. Instead it accepts a free AIR MILES Collector Card.

You can earn AIR MILES at a rate of 1 AIR MILE for every $20 spent. They also offer bonus AIR MILES on certain purchases.

If you enroll, you will probably get offered special AIR MILES coupons customized for your Metro store.

You can use the AIR MILES a few ways, including

You can enroll in the AIR MILES Cash program.
You can redeem 95 AIR MILES for $10 off your grocery bill.
That makes each AIR MILE worth about 10.53 cents.
Or, you can save your AIR MILES to redeem for “Dream Rewards” including flights, admission tickets for events and merchandise.

Metro has been connected with AIR MILES for a long time. I remember when the Dominion stores first brought in AIR MILES cards. A friend of mine signed up for one but refused to give their name because they thought gathering the marketing data on them would be creepy. I don’t know whether they ever got any rewards, though!

What Rewards Does P.A.T. Offer?

P.A.T. has a free rewards card. It only applies if you pay cash or debit. I’m still trying to check the details on how or whether you redeem points.

They sell the best brand of pork Grand-Peres, though, so that’s a pretty big reward in itself!

What Rewards Does Sobeys Offer?

Sobeys has a free points card called Club Sobeys that is swiped when you buy your items. In September 2014, you get 1 point for every whole dollar spent (before taxes.) They also give bonus points on various items.

Points can be redeemed

to take dollars off your grocery bill, or
you can use them to get rewards from their catalogue, or
you can also have all of your points converted to Aeroplan miles, if you want.

It’s worth understanding how the cash rewards work. You get more $ per point if you wait till you have quite a few points to redeem.
For example,

725 points will get you $5 off your bill so 1 point is worth about 0.69 of a cent.
3200 points will get you $25 off your bill so 1 point is worth about 0.78 of a cent.
12500 points will get you $100 off your bill so 1 point is worth about 0.80 of a cent.

I met one person shopping at Sobeys who saves their points all year to pay for their extra Christmas groceries.

What Rewards Does Starsky Offer?

Starsky has a free Starsky Loyalty rewards card that offers instant savings. Shoppers receive a 2% discount on all regularly-priced items.

Items that are on sale do not qualify for the discount.

That’s pretty sweet! You just swipe your card to save money immediately.

What Rewards Does T&T Offer?

I’ve seen various contests at T&T where based on the total amount you spend, you get more tickets to enter in the draws. I haven’t seen any type of loyalty card program yet though.

Which Grocery Store Has the Fastest Rewards?

Based on my research, and as of September 2014, it looks like Starsky offers the fastest reward. They give you a cash discount off your bill immediately. No collecting or redeeming points.

Which Grocery Store Has the Highest Rewards?

That one is really difficult to determine. Because several stores offer “bonus” points on various goods they sell, the highest reward may vary depending on what you like to purchase and how often.

Based only on base points per dollar spent in the store, though, as of September 2014, it looks like it might be best to spend your money at Starsky.

Not including the effect that bonus points might have on your shopping, and assuming everything you need to buy at Starsky is not on sale, four of the grocery stores rank like this:

To get $1 back

From Starsky, spend $50 on regularly priced items
From Longo’s, you need about 200 points which takes about $100 of spending
From Sobeys, you need about 125 points which takes about $125 of spending
From Metro, you need about 9.5 AIR MILES which takes about $190 of spending

But then you also have to check on the total cost of your usual grocery purchases at each store. It’s no good getting $25 back every 6 months if you spend $50 more than you need to during that same period than you would purchasing the same goods somewhere else.

Not to mention if you can buy your groceries at one store without driving but at another store you have to drive 7 km to get there and another 7 km home, you should really factor in the cost of gasoline if you’re trying to compare savings. Argh! I have no interest in doing that!

How Do I Use Grocery Shopping Rewards?

I sign up for the free programs and then shop exactly the way I did before. I don’t care if they offer me 1000 points for buying 2 loaves of bread if I only want one I only buy one. I don’t want to buy some strange brand of pasta just to get more points. I still won’t buy bagels or facial tissues unless they are cyclically at the lowest price, even if I could earn a zillion points.

The grocery stores probably don’t like shoppers like me very much. But they still get all sorts of marketing insights into my buying habits for free when I swipe my card, so tough.