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For those of you constantly fearing the next market crash, there's one thing you need to remember...

The U.S. stock market is the greatest wealth creation tool in history.

The average American household spends more than $800 a month on health insurance.

That number doesn't include additional expenses like copays and deductibles. One study from the Commonwealth Fund found that the average family spends 10% of its wealth on health insurance. That's up from 6.5% 10 years ago.

The rising costs of coverage has pushed people to choose health care plans with even higher deductibles to save on the monthly cost.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40% of Americans have a high-deductible health plan (HDHP). But if you have a medical emergency, you could be on the line for $1,000 or more in costs before you meet your deductible.

So today, we'll explain how to put aside money for emergencies and take advantage of a loophole that allows you to profit from your health care plan.

HDHPs are one of three main health insurance plans. The other two are health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and preferred provider organizations (PPOs).

Health maintenance organizations (HMOs) offer local plans that focus on in-network providers. That means they have specific doctors, specialists, and hospitals they work with. They've worked with the insurance plan to offer reduced rates in exchange for getting more patients through the insurance company.

I remember a real stock crash...

It was the worst day in Wall Street history.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points on October 19, 1987. In percentage terms, stocks dropped 22% in one day. That's crazy. And when things get that crazy, clients panic...

During the 1987 "Black Monday" stock crash, I was working on the trading desk for Goldman Sachs.

For days, we worked, ate, and slept at the office... and helped our clients move assets around. It was a true global panic. There was no time to go home, so we simply "copied" our outfits and wore the same clothes from the day before. We called it "Xeroxing."

It was a nerve-racking experience, but it taught me one simple lesson: When extreme fear hits the market, it creates incredible opportunities.

At its lowest point on Monday, the Dow lost nearly 1,600 points. It ended the day down nearly 1,200 points, about 4.6%. And Wall Street's "fear gauge" – the CBOE Volatility Index (or "VIX") – soared by more than 100%.

So while this crash isn't anywhere close to Black Monday, it's clear that there is real fear underlying the bull market. And lots of investors are wondering if we're headed for a correction – that is, a market drop of 10%-20%.

We might be... (In fact, I predicted as much during our Stansberry Portfolio Solutions webinar in late January.)

But the good news is that most corrections are insignificant. They're about as damaging to your portfolio as a cold is to your long-term health. You'll get over it... and pretty quickly.

If you set aside major events like the dot-com bust and the 2008-2009 financial crisis... over the last 12 corrections of 10% or greater, it typically only takes about five months to earn back losses.

Some of those markets bounce back in as little as 32 days, like they did in 1997 or 1999.

As long as a correction doesn't have a recession attached to it, the average decline is only about 19.4% according to numbers compiled by Ben Carlson of Ritholtz Wealth Management. And if you limit that to the modern era – 1970 onward – the average drops to 17.5%.

Additionally, after these drops, the market tended to return 79.4% over the next five years.

But what about those true bear markets... the most traumatic market upheavals of the last 70-plus years? The big declines get paired with recessions...

And right now, we don't see any signs that a recession is looming. The American consumer is stronger than he's ever been. GDP is growing at around a healthy 3% with more room to run.

The lesson here is simple... Ride out the recession-free declines in the markets like the bumps in the road that they are.

We are getting more cautious... And we do expect a correction to come sooner rather than later. But what we saw on Monday wasn't that correction.

There's a lifesaving revolution unfolding in cancer research...

A new treatment is extending the lives of people with supposedly "incurable" cancers... even wiping out cancers completely.

In 2013, you could find a few perpetual worriers about how high the markets had gotten. There's always a perma-bear to warn you about a coming crash.

Today, that fear is far more widespread. My phone won't stop ringing with friends asking me how to protect their money. In the last couple weeks, it's really ramped up... a full-on assault on my phone.

The best gift I (Amanda) ever received sounds morbid...

A few years ago, my husband's grandmother paid for us to have our wills, advanced directives, and powers of attorney drawn up by a lawyer.

There's an assault on cable companies...

Folks across the country have been cancelling their cable subscriptions in a hurry. In 2017, eMarketer estimated that 22.2 million cable customers cancelled their subscription, up from 16.7 million in 2016.

Most weight-loss trends are useless.

Whether it's pills, a strict diet, or a crazy exercise regime, they're unlikely to lead to lasting weight loss.

It's January, which means no one is eating the office cookies.

Each new year, folks make resolutions to lose weight. They want to try the latest, greatest diet trend that promises to slim you down in just a few weeks.

If you want to know what a bubble looks like, it looks like Flooz or Beenz...

For those who may not remember, these were new, "online currencies" that attempted to become an alternative to credit cards for spending money on the Internet.