Maximize your remaining benefits

- When I'm working with clients on their financial plans, one of the most overlooked areas is employee benefits. Some of these benefits are, as we say, use it or lose it. Especially if you might lose your job, the time for using those benefits will be limited. When you're leaving your job, you should maximize your employee benefits before you leave. The first thing to think about is your health, dental, and vision coverage. If you've met your deductible for the year, you may be able to get treatments with no or very low out-of-pocket cost. So for example, let's say that you had some medical procedure done earlier this year and that satisfied your $1000 deductible. You've been thinking about going to see a specialist about a medical issue, but you've been putting it off. Now's the time to go. When you start your new job or switch insurance plans, your deductible will start over. So now is a great time to use these benefits that you have from your soon-to-be previous employer. The same can be said for dental care. If you've been putting off some sort of dental procedure that's covered by insurance, looking to doing it in the next few weeks before you might be laid off. If you're eligible for an eye exam and a new pair of glasses or contacts for your vision insurance, now would be a good time to go in for that appointment. If you contributed to an account like an FSA, be sure to understand whether or not your balance will be forfeited when you leave. Again, this may be an opportunity to spend that money before it goes away. If you're participating in a retirement account, this might be a good time to try and boost those contributions to get closer to the maximum for the year. You should only do this if you have enough emergency funds set aside and you're confident you have a cushion to weather the next few months of unemployment. If your employer offers some sort of transit benefits or wellness programs, understand what happens to those benefits when you leave. It may be advantageous to prepay or otherwise use those funds before they're gone. By better understanding your employee benefits and maximizing them before you leave your job, you potentially get hundreds or thousands of dollars of value out of them before you leave. Take the time to understand what's going to happen when you leave and see if there's any way that you can take advantage.