We have never had great insurance to offer the kids, but I would do it in a minute to offer them the best available. We kicked all the kids off the phone plans to cut the cord and then we put them back on, better deal for all plus we use one of the kid’s job’s discount. I use their CCs to pay the monthly bill, each their share.
Health insurance, no brainer, if the coverage is better, leave them on.
Re HSA:
Only certain health insurance plans are eligible for an HSA. So if your kid doesn’t sign up for that insurance plan, he can’t set up the HSA.
Money can only be contributed to the HSA during a year that a person has a qualifying insurance plan, but once that money is there it can stay there forever and be used for future qualifying expenses no matter what kind of health insurance policy the person has at that later time. There also is a point (age 59 1/2 I think) where it can be rolled into a regular IRA without penalty.
For a young person with good health and decent income, an HSA-eligible health insurance plan can be a good way to beef up savings in general, with an eye to long-term retirement planning. However, the person thinking about this needs to investigate the banking entities that might hold the account. Some have relatively significant fees if the account balance drops below $XXX. When I had an HSA, I had to keep the balance above $500 in order to avoid fees. Eventually I used the last $501 toward a big medical bill, and closed the account.
One point to note is that your ‘under 26 kid whom you kept on your family plan’ should be able to use his employer’s FSA if he so chooses, without being covered by his employer’s health insurance.
Our oldest is 21 so we have a ways to go. Our insurance has different costs based on whether it’s a employee & spouse or employee plus family. There is a pretty big difference in cost. So when the youngest is out of college I"m hoping he will have a good plan at his place of employment so we can go down to employee & spouse coverage.
For us our share of the monthly premium with just 2 people is only about $7.50/month less than if its an entire family on the plan.
We had better insurance than our D had at her job, but she ended up switching. We’re in different states, and the doctors who’d take our insurance (even though it was the Blues) were never taking new patients. So what good is a better insurance plan if no one will take it? She switched to hers, and seems to be doing pretty well with it.