Health Insurance

[ALawyer]

It sounds as if your husband's employer (assuming it is a large one) has a human resources or benefits director that does not know the law or the terms of its own insurance policy and as a result is wasting its employees money and also its own money.

All I can think of otherwise is (1) its insurance company requires a minimum percetage of enrollment, and the HR guy is afraid that unless s/he insists they won't remain eligible or (2) the employer is experience rated and thus having lots of people who pay for coverage they never use holds down the cost of insurance for everyone else and/or the company.

 

[hym642]

I have my husband and son and myself covered under my health insurance with my company. It is time for my husband to do their open enrollment and it is considerably cheaper for him to remain on my policy and for him to opt out of insurance with his company. His company is telling him that if he opts out and doesn't at least take either a PPO or an HMO then if I were to die or loose my job, it would be next year before he could enroll and he would just be out of insurance from the time I died or lost my insurance until enrollment time. I am covering him under an HMO so for him to take out a PPO or an HMO would be stupid. If my husband's insurance companies have disclaimers that state that they would be willing to pick up members should their spouse die or lose their job, doesn't his company have to go ahead and let him enroll at that time? I think there is a 30-day time period on that also. What his company is doing is making ALL employees have to pay for one or the other whether they ever need it or not.