Hear me out on this, please.
Let’s say that I spend $5k on health insurance in a year, but don’t go to the doctor or have any medical issues in that year. Where does my money go? It disappears. I basically just gave away my money, and received nothing in return. However, if I took that $5k and simply put it into a personal savings account instead of giving it away to a health insurance provider - that money stays right there if and whenever I decide to use it. It even collects interest.
I realize that with a health insurance provider, you’re (supposedly) getting discounted rates on medical services - but if your money is just disappearing into thin air if you don’t happen to need those medical services in a given year, are you really saving money? It just seems like a really big scam to me - what am I missing?
Unless you’ve committed to a 5 or 10 year CD, you probably can defer the payments or split them until the CD matures so you don’t forfeit the interest. Also, for proper CD planning, it’s probably best to use a ladder strategy where you have multiple CDs and staggered so one matures every year for you to decide if you need the cash or can reinvest it.