Financial Wellness May Save Some People's Vision: Guardian Survey

An insurer has found signs that lack of financial wellness could threaten some people’s ability to see.

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America uncovered the evidence when it commissioned a recent online survey of about 2,000 U.S. adults, ages 22 and older, who work full-time for a company with at least five full-time employees.

(Related: Look Here! 3 New Things to Know About Vision Care)

Guardian sells vision benefits. It asked the survey participants about their vision benefits.

About 69% of the participants said they had vision benefits. That’s up from 60% in 2012.

The percentage of the participants with vision benefits related to their own work increased to 58%, from 50%.

Guardian also surveyed employers. The percentage that pay the full cost of employees’ vision plan benefits increased to 32% this year from 25% in 2017.

Guardian also looked at the relationship between financial stress and eye care neglect.

The company asked the participants to rate their financial wellness as excellent, good, fair or poor. Analysts divided the participants into an excellent/good financial wellness group and a fair/poor financial wellness group.

Only bout 19% of the participants in the excellent/good group said they skipped having regular eye exams.

About 47% of the participants in the fair/poor group said they skipped annual eye exams.

Guardian also asked whether participants were feeling financial stress.

About 45% of the people who said they felt high financial stress were skipping annual eye exams, compared with 31% of the people who said they felt high financial stress.

Similarly, 58% of the workers still paying off college debt were skipping annual eye exams, compared with 38% of the workers with no college debt.

—Read WellPoint: The Future Looks Blurry — And, For Many, So Does E-Mail,  on ThinkAdvisor.

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