glasses

The answer sure seems to be “nothing”. I just went for an eye exam for the first time since Covid and realized that I’ve been wasting my money by paying for vision insurance.

The problem isn’t the eye exam- that went fine, and was covered fine with a $35 copay. But it was covered by my health insurance, not my vision insurance. So what is the vision insurance good for, if it doesn’t cover eye exams?

The answer is supposed to be “glasses”. It is supposed to cover frames up to $150 with a $0 copay, and basic lenses with a $25 copay, from in-network providers. That sounds ok- but there are two problems.

One is that almost none of the in-network providers (like Glasses dot com or Target optical) appear to actually offer lenses where the $25 copay applies; instead the minimum lens price is at least $85.

The second problem is that the premiums are high enough that even if I use them to get $25 glasses (which I eventually found I could through LensCrafters), it wouldn’t be worth it. They don’t sound high at first, which is how I got suckered into signing up for this scam in the first place. It’s just $5/month for single coverage; that sounds like nothing, especially for an employer benefit. It is a rounding error compared to health insurance premiums, and it comes out of pre-tax money. A small waste, but still a waste. Why?

Glasses are just so cheap if you can avoid the monopoly retailers and get them somewhere like Zenni. Zenni will sell you perfectly functional (and IMHO good-looking) prescription eyeglasses for $16. Their frames start at $6.95, lenses at $3.95, and shipping at $4.95. Catch a sale, or order enough to get free shipping, and you could actually get glasses for well under $16.

Or you can do what I did- order glasses from Zenni with premium options that pushed them up to $50- and find it is still cheaper than using the insurance I already paid for to get the cheapest pair available at most of their in-network retailers. The cheapest possible deal with insurance would be to pay $60/year in premiums, get glasses as often as the insurance allows so as not to waste the benefit (every 12 months- much more often than I find necessary), find frames listed under $150 to get for $0 copay, and find an in-network provider that actually offers lenses for the $25 copay. In this best-case scenario you are still paying $85 per pair of glasses. Given that the $60 in premiums came from pre-tax money, perhaps you can argue that it was really more like $40 in real money; but you can also buy glasses from a competitive retailer like Zenni using pre-tax money from an HSA or FSA.

So as far as I can tell, vision insurance really is useless. I certainly decided not to use it for my latest pair of glasses even though I had already paid years of premiums; Zenni was still much cheaper for a comparable product. I’m dropping vision insurance now that open enrollment is here. My take-home pay will be going up, and EyeMed will stop getting my money for nothing.

Is there anyone vision insurance makes sense for? I think it could makes sense for someone who really wants brand name glasses, or for someone who really wants to get their glasses in-person at the optometrist, and wants new glasses every year. For everyone else, run the numbers for your own plan, but I suspect you would also be better off just buying glasses directly.

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored & doesn’t use affiliate links; Zenni is the best option I currently know of, but I’d be happy to hear of other competitive retailers you think are better, or an argument for when vision insurance is actually useful.

Surely you have heard by now that a solar eclipse is coming. As the April 8 date approaches, the media/social media coverage will likely rise to a roar. I think we all know that the experience of being in the path of a total solar eclipse is eerie and memorable – – birds and insects can fall silent as night-like darkness falls, and a noticeable chill may be felt in the air.

Maps abound of the eclipse path across North America. For the U.S., it starts in Texas around 1:30 Central time, traverses southern Indiana and northern Ohio around 3:10 Eastern and ends in northern Maine about 3:30. Here is a snip I took from this NASA map, where I zoomed in the Midwest/Northeast section, and traced in red the lines of 90% totality:

If you really want the 100% experience, and if you want it to last the full four minutes, you must be in a relatively narrow strip. And if you want to have good chance of not having clouds obscure the fun, you may need to fly to central Texas. Buffalo, New York is in the middle of the eclipse path, but it is a notoriously overcast place.

But lots of folks, including residents of Chicago, Toronto, and the Boston-Washington corridor, live within the zone of (nearly) 90% totality, where you can see the moon sliding across most of the sun’s disk over the course of a few minutes, and experience significant darkening. The next solar eclipse to touch the U.S. will not be until 2044, and that will be barely visible from three less-populated states, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

So, I suggest you take the opportunity to enjoy this one to the max. This absolutely entails using special glasses with filters designed for safe viewing of the sun. Do not even think of looking at the sun without such glasses, and be alert lest children pick up the wrong cues and try to look at the sun.

The good news is that eclipse glasses are still available. I ordered some from Amazon a couple days ago that arrived two days later, and I saw them for sale in Lowe’s today. I got some extra to share with random friends and strangers. This can be a great chance to interact with neighbors and children.

The price per pair of glasses varies a lot, so do comparison shop. I look for ones that say “CE and ISO Certified” like these. Be safe and have fun!