I have an almost 3 year old girl. We have received a letter from CSS regarding additional dental insurance as she will be 3 years old.
As my wife and I have had problems with insurance companies, so I would like to know if their offer is good or not. I don’t want to get into trouble again. My pain level/tolerance towards insurance companies is ZERO!
here is the related part
This is a complete offer including dental insurance
Have you looked at myFlex Outpatient insurance from CSS? It already covers a lot, including some dental cost and for my kids I only pay 4.70 CHF, plus 16.30 CHF for the dental care. 21 CHF in total
If you go with CSS Myflex, then make sure to get either the Balance or Premium versions, as those have benefits for dental work and orthodontics. The Economy version won’t do you any good in that regard.
If you go with the CSS dental insurance in combination with Myflex Balance or Premium, I recommend versions 1, 3, or 4, as those have orthodontics coverage that will extend what you get with Myflex.
Getting dental insurance and keeping it until the second set of teeth come can be worth it, if peace of mind is important to you. Any major orthodontic problems will generally show up by the time they start getting their second teeth, so after that you’ll know whether it’s necessary to keep the insurance.
In case you aren’t already aware, you can get your KVG (mandatory health insurance) and VVG (complementary health insurance) from different insurance companies. You can even get just dental insurance on its own from a different insurance company than you get health insurance from. CSS is not bad all-round, if that happens to be the cheapest KVG where you live. But if you have the nerves, take a look at these overviews I made to see what else is available:
https://www.moneyland.ch/en/dentist-orthodontics-health-insurance-switzerland
I have CSS MyFlex Outpatient Premium for my kids and I can recommend it. They pay 50% of orthodontics. I receive payment in few days with no questions asked. It has been valuable for us.
On the other hand we took Assura Denta Plus several years ago, when the kids were born. It pays up to 500 CHF/year (but then deduct 20% as your participation - so actually it is only 440 CHF/year). The unused amounts cumulate year after year. I have mixed feelings with this one…
We have paid approx 20 CHF/month (so 240 / year) to get up to 400 / year. Of our two kids, one has used the amount in full and the other one (just reached 18 yo) didn’t use at all… so at the end we lost money 
Moreover, Assura has generally been quite slow in dealing with our claims. In retrospect, we could have just saved these 20 bucks/month in some kind of emergency fund managed by ourselves.
My 2 cts
One should not insure things they can pay themselves. Insurance is not charity, the average customer will lose money.
There are only a handful of good reasons to take out insurance:
Not sure what to tell you.
I have a supplementary dental insurance. and then I send some bills as one of my kids got few caries and they told me that they do not cover caries :o, one of the most basic treatments.
The whole dental insurance is an schema.
You can take some risk. The dentist told us pretty clear for both kids
First one better get an insurance has he 99% will need brackets
Second one she does not see the need and the space,… looks pretty good
That is really what it comes down to. I think most people on this forum are the types who would likely make the most of insurance.
The potential savings of dental insurance are quite marginal. But for orthodontic work, where you’re looking at costs up to 10K or even 15K, the savings potential is bigger. Still, the majority of policyholders will pay in more than they take out (or the insurance would not be worth offering).
My general position on insurance is the same as yours. I stick to the ones that I know I will benefit from, plus the mandatory ones. This is my insurance portfolio:
Two things that made me skeptical about dental insurance are
How eagerly the sales people tell you how braces are often needed and could cost 10k plus. And, of course you need to sign up now.
Everyone has a story how much money the insurance saved them and how the premiums are only a few bucks for newborns without any teeth, yet. However, the terms then state, like, 50% coverage up to 1k a year.
And then this: Besides the overly cautious, dental insurance probably attracts those with dental issues. So, the premiums must cover for that, meaning they are inflated on average.
Hence no dental insurance in my family. I can save the premiums, could cover unexpected cost out of pocket and most dental insurances wouldn’t cover a big part, anyway.
Also depending on how bad the teeth are the IV will pay for the braces.
Out of curiosity, at what age dentist can determine this?
No idea, in our case was around 3/4 y/o.
I assume that this is more and less when they have already almost or all milk teeth out.
In our case the main difference was space between the teeth, one have none (aka problem in the future as the other teeth are bigger) the other plenty of space.
