Employer Paid Health Insurance

[osh]

My husband's employer pays for full family coverage, however we just found out that they haven't paid the premiums since 12/31/01! Does anything protect us?

 

[cbg]

Unfortunately, in the long term probably not. Since health insurance is not mandated by law in any state except Hawaii, there is no legal statute you can point to that says, here, this says you have to reinstate the health insurance.

However, since you had reason to believe that you had health insurance in place, if you have had any claims between 1/1/02 and now, you can probably make a very good case that your husband's employer is responsible for any medical claims in that period. Now that you know that insurance is not in place, you *probably* cannot hold them responsible for any claims going forward. See a local attorney for any local statutes.

You also might want to talk to the state insurance commission just in case your state has any statutes about insurance being cancelled without notification to the employees.

 

[driftbuster]

it would help if he had a written contract stating his benefits. it is a lot harder if there isn't anything in writing