Consider the following scenario: you work in a business field that requires you to be highly presentable at all times, say sales or PR. In time, you will need glasses or contact lenses (that, of course, assuming you don’t need them yet). Your employer will ask you to opt for the solution that has the lowest impact on your aspect, and will obviously ask you to consider contact lenses. Some companies even have that as a requirement, totally against using regular framed glasses. That may not sound as much, but considering a price of $120 for contact lenses, considering that you will need cleaning solution in order to keep them safe, clean and healthy, and considering that, generally, the safest and healthiest contact lenses are bought in 30-packs, you might end up having a lot of your earned money spent more on maintaining your availability for your position than on actually spending it the way you want. Add to that a family history of vision problems, and your benefit is pretty much gone at this point.

So, why do people opt for vision insurance? The most common argument against this insurance is that you will end up spending the same amount, if not more, in the end. What most people fail to realize is that all the insurance systems for chronic conditions (vision insurance included) are thought of in such a way that you end up only spending a very low amount of money, most of the times a constant amount of money, every month. By doing this, you are able to prioritize your expenditures far better than when not saving anything and suddenly having to pay hundreds of dollars or pounds, all at once.

Another argument when it comes to prioritizing is that, if you have insurance, you will be able to choose the best optical accessories, and not simply go for the cheapest (and usually worst) that you can find. With a certain amount of extra money, you will most likely be able to have your vision completely sorted out, with no unnecessary follow-ups and product trials. In the end, you might end up spending less on your vision than otherwise.

It is best to think of vision insurance like a savings policy. You give a certain amount of money that is small enough not to hinder you and constant enough so that you can easily make plans with the rest of your income, while, at the same time, you have the required amount of money precisely when you need it.

With less than $450 on average per year in the US for a family of three (that means $150 per family member, which roughly translates to $12.5 per month per family member), vision insurance plans are very affordable to say the least.

Consider, therefore, vision insurance as a necessary supplement to your health insurance. Many companies will offer packages built in such a way that vision insurance is included (as an annex) in your health insurance, usually at a lower price when taken as a whole. So why not spend a few extra for something that you know you will need in the future?

Up to now, you have seen the benefits of vision insurance when applied to medical accessories only. But consider that it doesn’t stop here. Regular check-ups, vision accuracy tests, testing interventions and curative operations, all are included within the same package of vision insurance. Hopefully, you don’t need to be told again that severe eye diseases (such as glaucoma) are crucial to be discovered in the early stages, when as little as possible is damaged. What you achieve by that? For many persons, nothing, and it would be best if you were also included in this category. But for those persons that end up developing these diseases, such insurance-covered procedures will be eye-saving, literally.

So do not consider vision insurance a useless expense, but plan for what you know you will need in the future.