<p>Son has to pick medical coverage and the cost at his employer is not particularly attractive, at least compared to my plan.</p>
<p>It’s basically $100/week out of his pay to cover just him. My plan is $55/week to cover our entire family. He is currently covered under my plan. I do not think that my costs would go down if we dropped him from it.</p>
<p>This is like those family phone plan questions for independent adults - do you stay with the family plan saving some cash or fully split up? I have to check coverage areas but I doubt that will be a problem as he will be working and living only 50 miles away.</p>
<p>I would keep him on your plan. It is half the price and better coverage. When he is no longer eligible to be on your plan, it is not too late to move him off, and maybe he will be with a firm with a better coverage. To me, it is a no brainer.</p>
<p>It appears that he’d get $35 back per week in flex credits if he went with our insurance too.</p>
<p>Our company gives me about $800/month in flex credits or about $9,600/year and our plan costs about $1,000 per month (or $12,000/year) so we get to see the real costs - so yes, the company is pretty generous. I would guess that our company has an excellent risk pool too given that we hire a lot of new grads and provide a lot of wellness benefits.</p>
<p>That is $400 a month. I would check individual plans…you might find an individual plan that is less expensive than paying the full tab from his employer (which is what this sounds like). </p>
<p>Goodness, keep him on the family plan, absolutely. BCEagle, he can stay on your plan at least until he turns age 26 – your company might permit him to remain until the end of the month he turns 26 or the end of the year – at which time he’ll be able to pick up coverage with his company.</p>
<p>Tell him to put the $100 a week into his 401(k) plan. :)</p>
<p>Make sure your family policy or employer does not have cute clauses such as “bad things will happen if a member of your family has ANY insurance **available **in addition to ours and does not take it”. This way if the wife works at Walmart (where insurance is available but very expensive) she can not be covered under your policy as long as she works… My benevolent employer even does audits to verify compliance, etc etc etc.</p>
<p>Check the details closely. I do know that at my company if you don’t sign up when you are eligible you can’t sign up again until their enrollment period is for the year, I think usually in the fall, but that could just be our date. Also double check that they will cover someone who can be covered under another policy. Just a question - since we seem to be covering family members til the end of time - what if your child had a child - would that grandchild be covered?</p>
I believe loss of other health coverage should be considered a “qualified status change”, and you should be able to enroll in the health plan at that point. My company gives 31 days to enroll after a status change, that’s been pretty standard at every company I’ve worked at.</p>
<p>I would double check with HR to make sure you current plan is not a grandfathered plan and that he is eligible to stay on the plan until he is 26. If that is the case, it is a qualifying change and he would be eligible to pick up his group plan then.</p>
<p>I have 2 employed children on our family health plan. I pay through my nose for it, anyway, since the youngest is still a student, so why not let the other 2 ride for free, and save their $150 monthly premiums in a 401k plan, as others have suggested.</p>
<p>If anything changes for me, and they should lose coverage, they can enroll in their plans at any time, as that would constitute a “qualified status change”.</p>
<p>Both of mine are on our (my wife’s) plan. We have no monthly premium, a $5,000 deductible (but we get $1,400 back from the employer in a HSA), and no copays once the $5k limit is reached. So it is to our advantage to have more people using the plan. Once we reach $3,600, everything (even pharmaceuticals) is free!</p>
<p>Once adult son moved out, we weren’t supplying more than 1/2 of his support and he couldn’t be on our plan anymore, since he had one available through his employer. He was just 24 and it would have saved a lot to keep him on ours for a couple more years, but it wasn’t an option. I don’t know if this is part of the law or if it’s up to the health insurance company, but you may not have a choice.</p>
<p>There are some plans that are grandfathered under the health reform so they don’t have to offer all of the changes. Keeping kids on until age 26 is a pretty common one you see. The HR people should know this off the top of their head so they should have an answer for you as soon as you call. It should be in your plan documents as well but often is buried in the small print toward the end.</p>
<p>It’s along the same lines when they changed drinking ages to 21 and some kids were grandfathered in because their birthday was close to the change date.</p>
<p>Ours is very clear that they can’t stay on <em>if</em> coverage is available through their own employer…doesn’t matter if it costs them a bazillion dollars. It is also very clear children of children won’t be covered.</p>
<p>At $5,200 per year for his own single coverage (must be full price, with no employer contribution), staying on your plan is a no-brainer.</p>
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<p>You would need to check with HR since every company plan is priced differently. Ours for example, is ee+sp, or ee+sp+ch = family coverage. The number of kids does not matter.</p>