It is never worth taking a health insurance deductible that is not CHF300 or CHF2500

[paul]

@Bojack

You can imagine a function like this:
TOTAL EXPENSES = function(HEALTHCARE BILLS, DEDUCTIBLE)
y = f(x)

Then for each deductible you can draw a chart, which I did already once in this forum, July 2018 (oh how quickly the stuff gets buried here). Then you can see which deductible gives you the lowest expenses for each level of healthcare bills, which as you said, you can’t predict. And then you will notice, that the middle options are never the best.

I think about that function with a probability parameter as well.
Let’s say that you have a probability of 73,88% of being sick for 2500 and of 26,12% of no medical bills this is how you would compare:
Deductible 300= 4450x73,88%+3930x26,12%=4314.176
Deductible 1500= 4732x73,88%+3132x26,12%=4314.08
Deductible 2500= 5017,2x73,88%+2467,2x26,12%=4351.14
So here is a mathematical valid case in with it’s worth taking an health insurance with a non-extreme deductible.

In reality that probability parameter is also uncertain. This means that you might estimate the right thing to take the 300 deductible but then you aren’t. Then next year you think that you will pay 3000 but then you pay 0. I that case it makes sense to go for a middle deductible.

To generalize:

• if you are bad at estimating how much you are going to spend it makes sense to go for a middle deductible.
• If you are extremly good at estimating, there are some rare cases (see above) in which it makes sense to go for a middle deductible.