That is around 190 a year for a plan that covers an exam, some allowance toward frames and a discount on lenses. My prescription is stable, I wear glasses only, no contacts, and I have been buying frames online for well under a hundred. I want to hear from people who ran the numbers rather than from the benefits brochure.
For your exact profile it usually does not pay, and the arithmetic is not close. An eye exam paid out of pocket is commonly in the low hundreds at most, you buy frames every other year online for under a hundred, so your two-year cost is a few hundred against roughly 380 in premiums for the same period. Where these plans do earn their keep is contact lens wearers, families with children whose prescriptions move, and anyone in progressive or high-index lenses where the lens bill dwarfs the frame. My plan pays for itself purely because of one child and one set of progressives.
One caveat, check whether your plan is priced per person or per family. Some are close to flat once you add anyone, which flips it the moment there is a second pair of eyes.
That is roughly the maths I did and I assumed I was missing something. Good to know I was not.
The detail that changes the answer for a lot of people is where the allowance can be spent. Plans steer you to in-network providers and pay much less, or nothing usable, when you buy from an online retailer, so the headline frame allowance is not money you can take to the cheapest seller. Read the out-of-network reimbursement line specifically. Mine reimburses a fraction of what it pays in-network, which made the whole plan pointless for how I actually shop.
This is the one to check before anything else. The premium is fixed, the benefit is conditional.
I kept a vision plan for six years out of inertia and used it twice. Best guess is I spent several hundred more than the glasses would have cost me, and I never once claimed the discount portion because I forgot it existed. If you do keep it, put a calendar reminder for when the benefit resets, because unused annual allowances do not roll over on any plan I have had.
@coast_fi_casey · 6mo ago
Politely disagreeing with the pure premium comparison. The exam is not only about the prescription — an eye exam is one of the routine checks where somebody looks at the back of your eye and occasionally finds something that has nothing to do with glasses. I would not skip the exam to save the fee, whether or not you keep the plan, and my optometrist has told me exactly what to watch for. Drop the plan if the maths says so, then book the exam anyway and pay for it.
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