I was reading an article (ok it was a humorous blog, but “article” sounds worldly and sophisticated so I had to call in an article) over the weekend that described the writer’s own childhood invention of the game “Roof Darts” and it’s soaring popularity (albeit briefly).  As you might imagine the game involved throwing darts from the roof of the house at a dart board down below.  All was beautiful in the sporting world of Roof Darts until the writer landed one in the back of his unsuspecting brother’s head. 

Fortunately, the brother was not seriously injured.  And in fact didn’t even realize that he was impaled until his roof dart throwing brother, after an “Oh Ship!” moment, mentioned it to the unsuspecting brother, who immediately went crying off to Mama.  Mama Mia!!

The point of this is that, ship happens, and ducks sell insurance.  I’m not suggesting that you go buy insurance from a duck, but while your high deductible health plan (HDHP) will cover you from really big medical headaches, and you can pay for dart wounds etcetera from your health savings account (HSA), most of us (and that includes our kids) are more likely to suffer from nuisances, like darts in the head, falling off a ladder, being jabbed with a pencil, or a bicycle mishap.

My son recently cracked his knuckle on the follow through of a long bomb in a touch football and landed in our local emergency room with Doctor Hal.  The boy whose head fractured my son’s hand never felt a thing.  I heard recently he shaved his head and is now using the back of it for a dart board.

So where is this all going?  In addition to your HDHP and HSA, you might want to consider taking out accident insurance for yourself and family.  Good policies are relatively inexpensive, and the premiums do not increase annually at the same rates as traditional insurance plans (HMOs & PPOs).  Between your HDHP and accident plan, you can build coverage that nears what you had before, it should cost less overall, and when renewal time rolls around will not rise in cost as much as a traditional policy will. 

In fact, I checked with a knowledgeable HSA agent who told me that for my family, we could get $5,000 per accident coverage with a $100 deductible for around $36 per month.  And we’re not talking about some crummy policy that pays a set amount based on the specific type of accident one has.  We’re talking about policies that even cover dart extraction.

If you have gotten this far and are thinking this is something you might want to check into, good for you!!  If your insurance agent is good, and understands HSAs well, give them a call, and get them to help you construct a program that gives you peace of mind and covers dart impalement.  You might find yourself sleeping better at night and laughing all the way to the bank.