For agents, brokers and consultants who sell supplemental healthinsurance and related products, looking closely at consumers'finances is like watching a beautifully shot, Oscar-winning horrormovie.

Related: Millennials leading shift toward HDHPplans

The opportunities are alluring, but the challenges arefrightening.

Consumer groups once blasted issuers of supplemental healthbenefits products, and argued that consumers should satisfy theircoverage needs by buying high-quality major medical coverage.

Whatever the new Affordable Care Act major medical insurancerules and coverage expansion programs may have done, they have noteliminated moderate-income workers' deductibles, coinsurancepayments or disability-related expenses.

If anything, the ACA coverage standards that apply to grouphealth market, and a general emphasis on making consumers thinkharder about their health care spending, have led to big increasesin out-of-pocket costs for typical workers in the past 10years.

Related: High deductibles leading to health careavoidance

The supplemental health benefits market is attractive forinsurers, because the claims tend to be small, designing theproducts to avoid ACA restrictions is easy, and low rates of returnon bonds are not an issue.

Issuers of supplemental health benefits usually collect premiumsfor a policy through the course of a year, pay any benefits claimedduring the same year, and finish paying a claim within two years,or even within a few days after making a determination.

The issuers do not have to worry about making the kinds of big,long-term investments that issuers of annuities, life insurance ordisability insurance have to make.

But, at the same time, for any benefits advisor, looking at thesupplemental health benefits needs data is terrifying.

Workers need for employers to offer supplemental healthbenefits, either through employer-subsidized voluntary benefitsprograms or employee-paid worksite marketing programs, becauseworkers facing health crises need thebenefits.

The state of many workers' finances is terrible.

Related: Many employees regret choosing high deductibleplans

The workplace benefits unit of New York-based Guardian LifeInsurance Co. of America has published new data showing howterrible in a report based on a recent online survey ofabout 1,700 U.S. workers.

For a look at some of what Guardian analysts learned about theeffects of high deductibles on workers' current financialsituation, read on:

Fewer than half of workers have enough cash on hand to pay a$3,000 medical bill. (Image: Thinkstock)

1. The gap between out-of-pocket costs and workers' resourcescan be large.

Guardian found that the percentage of employers usinghigh-deductible health plans to hold down benefits costs hasincreased to 54 percent this year, from 48 percent just two yearsago.

Many of those high-deductible plans could have deductibles of$3,000 or higher, but only 44 percent of the workers surveyed thisyear told Guardian they had enough cash in a checking account orsavings account to pay a $3,000 medical bill.

About 34 percent said they would use credit cards to pay billsthat big.

Many high-deductible plan enrollees are skipping care.(Image: Thinkstock)

2. Some workers in high-deductible plans may be skippingnecessary care.

About one-third of the workers in high-deductible plans saidthey had skipped what they thought was a necessary doctor visit,avoided a blood test, delayed a procedure, failed to fill aprescription or avoided X-rays because of cost.

If some of the care the workers skipped really was necessarycare, the skipped care could eventually drive up catastrophicmedical claims and disability insurance claim costs, Guardiansays.

Guardian says use of products that could fill the coverageholes is still relatively low. (Image: Thinkstock)

3. High medical bills may be a threat to an advisor'snon-medical benefits business.

About 6 percent of the workers said they would handle a $3,000medical bill by raiding a retirement plan.

About 3 percent said they would use money set aside for theirchildren's education.

That kind of thinking could hurt advisors who have worked hardto build 401(k) plan and 529 college savings plan practices.