Top 6 Sites for Individual Vision Insurance Plans | 2017 Ranking | Vision Insurance Companies & Quotes

2017 RANKING & REVIEWS
TOP RANKING VISION INSURANCE PLANS

Recognizing the Importance of Securing the Best Vision Insurance

Securing the best vision insurance helps you protect one of your most valuable assets: your vision. Good vision insurance plans provide an affordable way to take care of your eyes. Individual vision insurance eliminates those financial excuses for avoiding your very important routine eye exams.

Most people would agree that their vision is extremely important to them, but the statistics on eye vision insurance and vision care in America tell a different story.

One study conducted by the CDC found that almost 40 percent of respondents attributed skipping vision eye care exams to lack of money or vision insurance.

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Purchasing a vision service plan is not just for eye exams. It can cover things like glasses, contacts, and dilation tests that can detect potentially devastating diseases like glaucoma.

If you need them, prescription lenses are a non-negotiable for living a comfortable daily life, and vision insurance can guarantee you don’t dive into the red paying for glasses or contacts.

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AdvisoryHQ’s List of Top 6 Vision Insurance Plans

List is sorted alphabetically (click any of the best vision insurance providers below to go directly to the detailed review section for that individual vision insurance provider):

• Davis Vision (Designer Plan—Basic)
• Davis Vision (Designer Plan—Premier)
• Eye Med (Bold)
• Humana (Vision)
• United Healthcare (Plan B)
• VSP (Standard)

Top 6 Individual Vision Insurance Providers | Brief Comparison

What Is the Best Vision Insurance Plan for Me?

Selecting the best vision insurance plan is a little disorienting. You want to get the individual vision insurance that will have you covered in case things go wrong, but you also don’t want to overspend on vision insurance plans with coverage for vision care you will likely never need.

But that’s the difficulty: vision insurance is meant to help you with the unexpected, and how can you plan for the unexpected?

While there is no crystal ball-like checklist for determining which vision service plan you’ll need, there are a couple of things you should consider before choosing a vision eye care plan.

Your Vision Health and Vision Eye Care History

Vision service plans differentiate between routine eye exams and more thorough eye exams that are meant to address specific health issues. If you are a relatively healthy individual who has been to regular eye exams and know you are not at risk of any vision issues, then a regular eye vision insurance plan that covers eye exams, glasses, and contacts is best for you.

An effective way to assess your vision care plan needs is to look back at your eye health and eye exams from the past several years.

Read Your Vision Insurance Plans Carefully and Understand the Defined Terms

This is where reading your vision care plan agreement carefully is very important. For instance, if you sign up with vision service plan providers that define a routine eye exam as an exam that just checks for refractive errors but does not cover dilation tests, you may be frustrated that your vision insurance is not as comprehensive as you thought.

Some Vision Care Plans Come with Waiting Periods

Vision insurance companies implement waiting periods that can be as long as a month for new customers. This is to ensure that people don’t just wait until they have a pricey vision problem to get eye vision insurance.

It makes sense. As Investopedia puts it, vision insurance companies need to spread out the risk, and they need the premiums of healthy people to pay out the benefits for unhealthy people.

If everyone only bought vision insurance plans when they knew they had an issue, vision insurance companies would not be sustainable. So don’t wait until you notice a problem to start looking for vision insurance quotes.

When You Shouldn’t Consider Vision Insurance for Individuals

Some might argue that vision insurance is not as much of a non-negotiable as health insurance is. In some ways, they are right. Vision eye care, while it can definitely cost a pretty penny, is not likely to lead you to financial ruin—although it can certainly throw you into some debt.

On the other hand, medical costs like hospital bills can lead to bankruptcy. Good health insurance can mean the difference between an unmanageably large bill and a manageable copay. As a result, vision insurance for individuals often pales in comparison.

But it’s a mistake to think about eye vision insurance this way. While you are unlikely to die from failing to see your eye doctor, you do risk damaging your vision. The thought of losing your vision is a terrifying thought indeed. Making room in your life and finances for proper, preventative eye care is a must.

Image Source: Pexels

But there are instances in which you can consider rejecting specific vision insurance plan providers:

If they do not cover comprehensive eye care: This is especially true for those who don’t need glasses and as a result, do not have many expenses associated with prescription lenses. If you see your optometrist for checking your eye health (i.e. detecting signs of disease) then you want vision insurance plans that have you covered.

NOTE: Some vision insurance plan providers offer lump sum payouts if you are diagnosed with a severe, vision-threatening disease.

If the monthly premiums for your eye vision insurance cost more than what you would pay out of pocket or more than your payout for the year: Do the math to see if it’s better to pay out of pocket for your glasses. It’s a chore, but it can save you from throwing away money.

The following table provides the information we used to get the vision insurance quotes and information used in this article.

Table: Info Used for Vision Insurance Quotes

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AdvisoryHQ Selection Methodology

What methodology does AdvisoryHQ use in selecting and finalizing the credit cards, financial products, firms, services, and products that are ranked on its various top-rated lists?

Please click here “AdvisoryHQ’s Ranking Methodologies” for a detailed review of AdvisoryHQ’s selection methodologies for ranking top-rated credit cards, financial accounts, firms, products, and services.

Detailed Review—Top Ranking Vision Insurance Plans

Below, please find the detailed review of each plan on our list of the best vision insurance plans. We have highlighted some of the factors that allowed these vision service plan providers to score so high in our selection ranking.

Davis Vision Basic Plan Review

Davis Vision provides vision insurance for individuals looking for a vision service plan. They offer different packages of individual vision insurance. The Davis Vision Basic plan is the first one that we will be reviewing in this article on the best vision insurance.

This is one of the vision service plan providers that provide an affordable vision insurance plans for consumers. Their basic vision insurance for individuals has a premium of roughly $10.72. This vision care plan covers or partially covers the basics including an annual eye exam, lenses, frames, and contacts.

Coverage

Your eye exam copay is $15, which means that is the amount you provide in cash to your optometrist’s office. This vision insurance for individuals comes with an annual allowance for frames. They will give you $130 for your frames, plus 20 percent off the balance. Frames from Davis Vision are fully covered.

Your prescription lenses come with a $25 copay. For contact lenses, you get an annual allowance of $130, plus 15 percent off the balance. These individual vision insurance benefits renew every 12 months for the eye exam and prescription lenses and every 24 months for the frames.

Davis Vision Premier Plan Review

This is the second individual vision insurance plan from Davis Vision reviewed in this article. This vision insurance allows customers to pay a little less cash up front for their vision eye care needs.

Coverage

The biggest difference between the Basic plan and the Premier plan is the copays. With this individual vision insurance, the allowance for contacts and frames remains at $130 plus a 15% off discount and 20% off discount respectively. The copays, on the other hand, go down by about $5. So you pay $10 out of pocket for an eye exam, and $20 for prescription lenses. Your vision insurance renews after 12 months for your eye exam, prescription lenses.

With the Premier vision insurance plan, you pay less in cash to vision eye care providers, and your coverage for frames renews every year instead of every two years, allowing you to affordably change up your glasses more frequently.

The plan you choose depends on your priorities. Both of these Davis vision insurance plans provide full coverage for frames bought from their company.

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EyeMed Vision Review

For $17.50 per month, consumers can get individual vision insurance from EyeMed Vision. The EyeMed Bold plan provides both copay and allowance coverage for your vision eye care needs.

A comprehensive eye exam, which is the best way to practice preventative eye care, comes with a copay of only $10 with this individual vision insurance. Prescription lenses have a copay of $20. Both contacts lenses and frames are given an allowance of $130.

Image Source: Pexels

The individual vision insurance from EyeMed allows for both in-network and out-of-network coverage. While these specific vision insurance quotes are related to their in-network coverage, customers can inquire into the out-of-network coverage that is available.

While coverage for LASIK is not available through this eye vision insurance provided by EyeMed, they do offer discounts for EyeMed vision insurance policyholders. This plan’s benefits for exams, lenses, and frames renew once every 12 months.

EyeMed also has a convenient provider locator on their website that allows customers to find in-network coverage in their area. This is definitely a handy tool, but if you are particular about keeping an existing eye doctor, be sure to verify with their office first before buying insurance. It would be frustrating to lock into an individual vision insurance policy thinking you could continue seeing your optometrist when that isn’t the case.

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Humana Vision Review

Humana is a recognizable name in the insurance industry. They sell health insurance, dental insurance, and vision insurance across the country. Of course, our review will be focused on their individual vision insurance.

The eye vision insurance offered by Humana is simply called Humana Vision with a premium of $14.99 a month. It provides basic vision eye care coverage for its policyholders. For your yearly exam, your copay is $15—the rest is covered by Humana. For standard lenses, which are defined by Humana as single or multi-focal lenses, you pay $25 out of pocket, and the rest is covered by your vision insurance for individuals.

For lenses that do not fall under this category, there is no coverage, but there are discounts and deals available.

Your contact lens allowance is $150. Frames also get a $150 allowance, and you pay 80% of the remaining balance. In other words, you get 20% off the remaining balance with your Humana vision care plan.

Your allowance and benefits renew every 12 months with this eye vision insurance. There is no waiting period with this individual vision insurance.

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United Healthcare Plan B Review

United Healthcare provides an individual vision insurance plan called Plan B. It goes without saying that this particular Plan B has nothing to do with reproductive health. It’s all about your vision eye care.

For eye exams, customers only have to pay $10 out of pocket with their UHC vision service plan. Lenses only have a $10 copay, which is notably lower than the other copays in this review. The reason for this is that the monthly premium for UHC’s Plan B is $15.70, a premium that’s higher than the others.

Select contact lenses comes with a $0 copay, while non-selection contact lenses are covered up to $150. You still get coverage with your UHC eye vision insurance for contacts even if you choose to buy glasses as well, which is not the case with many other plans that require you to choose one or the other to be covered. There is a cheaper Plan A vision insurance plan option from UHC that has this restriction.

VSP Standard Plan Review

VSP is the final individual vision insurance company on our list of the best vision insurance providers. Their eye vision insurance, VSP Standard, comes with a $12.88 monthly premium.

After paying $15 up front as your copay, your individual vision insurance with VSP covers the remaining cost. For prescription lenses, you get full coverage after providing a $25 copay. There is a $120 allowance for frames, plus 20 percent off the remaining balance. All of these benefits and allowances renew after 12 months.

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Conclusion—Protect Your Eyes with the Best Vision Insurance

One of the most important things you can do to protect your eyes is get regular eye exams. They are your first line of defense and can halt the development of potentially life-altering vision diseases. Don’t let time or money get in the way of your vision eye care. When it comes to addressing lack of time, think about how much you value your vision, and when it comes to addressing affordability, consider finding individual vision insurance from the best vision insurance companies.