Is there such a thing as LASIK lifetime insurance?

The short answer is "no". There is no honest lifetime insurance or guarantee in LASIK, at least as most everybody would imagine it to be. "Insurance" is sometimes offered as part of a strategy by many of the LASIK chains to recoup the cost lost by the discounts they use to lure patients in.

While there are different versions of the "lifetime guarantee," they all depend on the patient not truly understanding what they are buying. Most people assume that any post-LASIK future vision problem is going to be due to regression in the laser treatment effect. While this is occasionally possible, it is rare.

Most deterioration in vision after age 40, is due to a condition known as presbyopia which occurs as a change in the natural lens of the eye, rather than in the cornea where LASIK works. Since the aging of the natural lens is not amenable to further laser vision correction on the cornea, you will not get that pre-paid correction you thought you were entitled to when you bought the "insurance".

Presbyopia and early cataract development (clouding in the natural lens) are near universal in middle-age people. Their effects on vision are not going to be eliminated with more laser treatment. And worse, these effects are progressive so even somebody who insists on more laser vision correction anyway will find the results disappointing and short-lived.

Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chief of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic