I’m a pretty trusting guy.  I have my limits, though.  There are two different groups of folks in whom I put very little trust—the folks who run big insurance companies and dentists.

I’m REALLY not a big fan of dentists.  It’s not because of the pain associated with having some guy ramming a drill into my mouth, either.  I don’t fear the pain.  I just don’t like the invasion of personal space that’s associated with dentistry.  What happens in my mouth is my business!

And I’m not really a big fan of insurance companies, either.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of insurance on a conceptual level.  It’s necessary stuff.  The companies themselves, however, seem dedicated to the proposition that they should find ways to increase David Lampsen’s rates on a regular basis and engage in incredibly confusing and slow-moving behavior every time they actually need to cover part of a bill.

So, it may come as a surprise to discover that I have a few good things to say about Aetna dental insurance.

Now, unless you live within a cloistered monastery or within a Rumspringa-free Amish community, you’ve probably heard of Aetna.  They are a big ol’ insurance company with lines that run from catastrophic health coverage to pet insurance.  That’s right, Aetna will insure Mr. Dandy Pants and Princess Tabbytha, bringing a smile to even the most ill-tempered crazy cat lady!

They also cover dental insurance.

When you visit Aetna’s site to look into dental insurance, you’ll find that they divide their dental policies into two groups.  One is for anyone from a teething baby to a 49 year old.  The other is for the 50+ crowd.  That division seems to have a lot more to do with the prices points than it does with the actual nature of the available policies.  In addition to those individual plans, they also handle group and family policies.

Aetna describes their product line for the dentally damaged:

Aetna Individual Advantage Dental has two plans to meet your needs — the Aetna Individual Advantage^SM Dental PPO Plan and the Aetna Individual Advantage^SM Dental PPO Plus Plan. They both offer coverage for:

• Preventive care services such as cleanings, x-rays and more
• Basic care like fillings, simple extractions, root canals, basic restorative work and more
• Major services such as bridges, crowns, dentures and more

Obviously, that’s about what you’d expect from a full-featured dental plan.  But as you dig a little deeper into the various Aetna dental insurance options, you soon find that they offer a lot of individual flexibility, including some interesting hybrid plans.

I particularly like the idea of the Aetna Dental Care Reward policy.  That particular policy creates incentives for maintenance and preventative dental car.  If you make a point of seeing the dentist regularly and nipping problems in the bud before they get out of control, the policy rate will actually drop.

That’s right, it does the logical thing (price declines in the face of evidence suggesting that the buyer will be less likely to have a major claim), while other insurers are happy to increase rates no matter what, Aetna dental insurace seems happy to reward good behavior.

This Aetna dental insurance option allows buyer to choose from dentists in nearly 100,000 locations to fill out the PPO options.

The POP side of this plan will allow you to choose from almost 100,000 locations, so it should be fairly easy to find a dentist in your area that you can trust.

Don’t think for a second that I’m softening my hard line on dentistry and the insurance racket.  I still don’t trust either bunch.  But if you need dental coverage, you might want to look at Aetna’s offering.  They have some good programs.