Health Insurance Question; Employed in one state, living in another.

[DawnCt1]

DH is employed in Massachusetts. We live in Ct. When a policy is written in Massachusetts to be used in Ct, does it have to comply with Ct. mandates? Ct. recently passed a law that is now in effect, that children up to age 26 must be covered on their parents policy if they are not married, if they have no insurance through an employer, if they haven't left the state to live elsewhere. DS#3 has been paying for his own insurance and it would be nice if we could add him onto ours. I plan to call Monday, but its nice to know the answer before I ask the question. Thanks.

 

[clh2]

I don't know the answer to your specific question - at our employee updates (in Wisconsin) it was asked if our employer was going to be following this particular trend in health insurance. I do not know if it is a state law in Wisconsin. IIRC, my employer said that becuae we are self-insured, that this rule doesn't apply.

Good luck!

 

[pilotwife_02]

I'm pretty sure it where the insurance policy is written. I'm only saying this since DH and most employees of his company don't live where their company is based but their insurance follows the laws of the state his home office is in. But who knows, I could be wrong and the person I was talking to at the time wasn't informed correctly. Wouldn't be the first time a customer service rep at an insurance company screwed something up.

 

[chloelovesdisney]

Wow, 26 years old. We are cutting the cord later and later.

 

[DawnCt1]

Wow, 26 years old. We are cutting the cord later and later.

Now that I agree with, but on the other hand most insurances cover students up until the age of 26 under their parents policy. This sees many of them through grad school. The new law doesn't require that the offspring (child doesn't really apply) be a student. Many are graduating and getting jobs that do not offer benefits, as in the case of our 24 year old. He is working full time and buying his own insurance. If we can cover him on ours, why not?

 

[Tiggeroo]

NJ passed the same law only until 31. The reason is that the young adult category is one of the largest uninsured groups and it costs alot of money to deal with the problems. Because all of my children were going into the uninsured age group and my one son has learning disabilities which makes it difficult to carry a full time course load we decided to add them. We had to pay the difference at dh's employer to upgrade from a couple to family plan. This cost 300. I charged each of my 3 children this difference. So for 100. apiece they get full medical, dental, vision and prescription with much more coverage then they'd get on their own. I'm happy but I can see how some employers wouldn't be.
I would guess that the law applies to the state the policy is written but it may depend on the type of company. Some types of businesses are governed by federal law and others by state law in their benefits coverage. This came up this week in our state in the debate as to whether to change our state policy on gay marriage from a civil union to marriage so that employers that are governed by federal law on their benefit coverage would include gay couples in benefit packages.