My wife and I both get insurance through our employers. Hers is 100 percent paid for by her company. Mine is a only partially paid for by my employer. She and the kids are listed on my insurance, and I and the kids are listed on hers.
Is there any law prohibiting me from cancelling my insurance and just going on hers? It would be great if I could save the money I’m paying.
Also, my wife thinks its better to keep the two policies we have. She thinks that if one of the policies reaches a limit, then the other one will kick in. I’m not so sure if medical insurance works that way.
If in U.S., I thought the forms ask if you have other ins. coverage.
I worked with enrollments until about a year ago, and there are no laws to keep you from dropping your insurance. You can drop your policy at any time for any reason.
Having two policies can be a big savings if you have limits to your coverage, or you have to pay co-insurance and deductibles. Without knowing some details on both policies, its hard to tell if you should drop your policy.
Medical policies can be used in coordination with eachother, even before limits are reached. How much so depends on both the plans, and which person’s insurance is considered primary.
You should check with your employer.
I assume you are talking about health insurance in the U.S. For any other type of insurance in any other location, the answers may be different.
There is no “law” againt dropping your insurance, the question is whether your employer has a policy that requires you to have insurance. Many employers will only allow you to drop insurance if you can show that you have some other source (such as spouse’s insurance.)
Any mid-size or large employers have encountered this situation often enough, that they will have alternatives available for you and will be able to provide information.
Generally speaking, you should only bother with one insurance. The other is a waste of premium money – especially if you are paying for it, but possibly if the company is paying for it. In many companies, people who elect not to have company-paid insurance coverage (because they have coverage through their spouse, for example) can receive the equivalent of company-paid premium in some other form of benefit. For instance, if you elect no insurance coverage, you might “spend” the same company money on increased life insurance, legal insurance, dental insurance, or whatever other benefits companies offer. Some large companies allow you to take extra vacation days in lieu of the medical premium, for instance.
Thus, to the extent that there is overlap in the coverages, you are probably short-changing yourself by being double-insured.
The two insurance companies will only pay once: if you have
a $100 claim, you can’t get payment from both insurance companies for the same claim. That’s fraud, and that IS illegal.
In short, you need to talk to the two employers to get full information. Questions to ask would include:
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exactly what each policy covers (you should be on the lookout for what is NOT covered)
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how the coordination of benefits (that’s the jargon phrase) would work if you maintained both insurances
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whether there is some sort of flexibility or employee-choice about the types of coverage you have. That is, if you elect not to be covered under one employer’s medical program, what does the employer offer instead?
Once you’ve got that info, you can compare the policies. Look at the exclusions and maximums. If one policy has a gap (such as, doesn’t cover cosmetic surgery) but the other policy does, that would help you decide which to have. If one policy has a cap (such as, doesn’t cover costs over $100,000) and the other policy has no cap, that would be another deciding factor.
Good luck. The issues become complicated, and your employers (or the Human Resource department) should be able to help you through it.
Re coordination of benefits, some insurance policies have been adding clauses recently stating that if a member’s spouse is eligible for coverage through the spouse’s employment and declines the policy, the insurance will still pay as if that policy were in effect. So be very careful about dropping one coverage. other things to look at in addition to what’s already been mentioned are such things as pre-existing condition clauses and prescription drug formularies. Also whether each policy has an open enrollment period so that if you do drop one policy and are dissatisfied with the one you keep, you have a time during the year when you can pick the other policy back up.
And to clarify:
What I’m sure CK meant to say was that you can’t have both insurances pay an amount exceeding the original claim. If the primary insurance pays, say, 90% and the secondary picks up the balance, that’s fine, that’s how COB is supposed to work.