Snap Judgment: When to Trust Your Instincts, When to Ignore Them, and How to Avoid Making Big Mistakes with Your Money

26. Health Insurance Decisions

Choosing health insurance is a situation where the stakes are high, the decision is complex, and there is a lot of anxiety about making the right choice. Also, picking a plan isn’t something we encounter frequently—once a year at most—so we aren’t familiar with the nuances of what each plan really covers. The elements involved—health and money—combined with uncertainty about what we are choosing makes for an unpleasant and possibly upsetting situation. When faced with this sort of dilemma, most people would rather avoid the situation altogether and not make any decision at all. Or we rely on our gut instinct to guide us, which can easily come up short.

This all-too-natural tendency has consequences when it comes ...