insurance payments

[Maf. King]

On Wednesday 07 Feb 2007, Ariel wrote:
> Any advice on how I should treat insurance payments (I don't mean premium
> payments, I mean if the insurance company pays the doctor).
>
> I was thinking of recording them as a transfer between
> Expenses:Health-Insurance to Expenses:Medical-Expenses
>
> Is that a good idea? It sort of implies that my Insurance payments were
> lower because I got a benefit from the insurance company, and conversely
> my medical expenses were higher.
>
> On the other hand on my tax return those medical expenses are not tax
> deductible, but since insurance payments are lower, and also deductible, I
> suppose it balance out.
>
> I was thinking of creating a 'Insurance Benefits' account, but it's not
> expenses or income, and I don't even know from what account I could
> transfer to it (which makes sense, since it's not money that actually
> passes through my hands).
>
> Any advice?
>
>  	-Ariel

Hi Ariel,

Note, this is just my two pence - IANAA, and I'm in the UK, so things may well 
be different over here...

Why isn't an Insurance payout (non-taxable) income?   Someone has _given_ you 
money, out of nowhere (well, OK, you gave them some first :-(  )

Sure, you may not actually see the money, but stuff which gets deducted from 
your paycheck still counts as "gross salary" i.e. income, and in both cases 
the bit you don't actually physically get decreases what you owe to some 
third party (eg. government or Doctor).

I would record the insurance-paid element of your medical bill as a transfer 
between accounts something like:
Income:insurancePayout:medical to Expenses:Medical 

Or at least I would, If I wanted to track that detail, which I haven't done in 
GC in the past.

I _have_ tracked insurance payouts where I have been sent the money (as a 
refund, or whatever), but that is because it appears in my bank account, and 
GC insisted that it had to come from somewhere.... 

HTH,
Maf.