By the fall of 2016, I had just about gotten my housing situation under control when I was in a car accident. 

My little Sunfire was rear-ended by a big, black pick-up truck.

While the insurance company was writing off my car as beyond repair, in the emergency room, I was being diagnosed with minor whiplash.  (Though in my opinion, “minor whiplash” is as much of an oxymoron as “jumbo shrimp”.  It doesn’t matter what “kind” of whiplash you have – whiplash is whiplash!)

After much prodding and probing, the emergency room doctor told me that since x-rays showed no serious damage to my neck, shoulders, or spine (hence “minor” whiplash), he was going to release me.  He also mentioned that in car accident/whiplash cases such as mine, he always recommends that the patient follow-up with physiotherapy.  Did I want him to forward my file?

I did not hesitate.

I said “yes”.

Because I knew I still had extended health care coverage.

When I retired, I had opted to continue with Ryerson’s Sunlife plan.

So the topic of this blog – extended health care coverage.

When you retire from Ryerson, you are no longer covered by Ryerson’s benefits package.  That great little Ryerson “perk” (managed through Sunlife Financial) that helps out with the cost of prescriptions, eye glasses, dentists, orthotics, massages, physiotherapy and so much more.

All of that coverage disappears the day you officially retire from Ryerson.

So along with everything else you are planning and researching in the five years prior to your retirement – put “shop for extended health care” near the top.

The subject of extended health care did not make it onto my early retirement radar until perhaps eight months prior to my official retirement date.  I think I was vaguely aware that I was about to lose all of my extended Ryerson coverage, but I was equally vague about what I was going to do about it. 

In the end, the decision was more or less made for me – my retirement budget was able to cover the cost of keeping the Ryerson plan.  Which means I carry on in retirement as if nothing has happened – all of my prescriptions are still more or less covered, I still make regular visits to my dentist, and I just got a new pair of prescription eyeglasses. 

And I knew that in the aftermath of my accident, a minimum number of physiotherapist appointments would be covered.

So while you are doing all of your other planning and scheming in the five years prior to your actual retirement date, start researching extended health care plans.  Do not wait until the last minute.

Unfortunately, purchasing any extended health care plan will cost you money, so you will need to scrutinize all of the available plans carefully.  Think long and hard about which extended benefits would just be an extravagance, which would be nice to have, and which are of life-quality importance to you and your family. 

And ask a lot of questions about all of the available plans.  Ask about minimums, maximums, deductibles, time-frames, how to process a claim, out-of-pocket expenses, increasing coverage, decreasing coverage.  Ask about the fine print.  The emergency room is not the place to discover you don’t have the extended coverage you thought you had.

Never in my wildest imagination did I think that I would ever be in a car accident (my first, and hopefully only one, in forty years of driving.)  Considering everything else I had to deal with in the aftermath of my accident, I was grateful that trying to figure out how to pay for physiotherapy appointments was not one of them.

P.S.   Two more tips about extended health care benefits:

Ryerson/Sun Life Financial plan – comes in two parts  (a) extended health care benefits and (b) dental.  When I retired (five years ago now) it was my understanding that you only have one opportunity to “purchase” both parts of this plan.  You must have made your final decision by your official retirement date.  If six months after you retire, you realize it would have been a good idea to keep the Ryerson plan, you cannot go back and purchase either portion of the Sun Life plan.  If you initially only purchase the extended health care benefits and pass on the dental plan, you cannot go back at a later date and opt back into the dental plan. Double check to see if this is indeed still the case.

And something else I learned after I retired - extended health care premiums can be claimed on your income tax.  This fact was not covered in any Ryerson seminar/workshop I attended.