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Any Benefits people out there? Secondary insurance question

auburnbride2beauburnbride2be member
in Georgia Babies
I started a new job where I can get really good family coverage. My husband receives health insurance through his company and they pay for it. He says he wants to keep the coverage at his job, but also be on my family coverage as secondary insurance. Is there any reason we should not do this? Cost wise, it is only about $20 per month difference between me adding him and not.
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Re: Any Benefits people out there? Secondary insurance question

  • runblondie26runblondie26
    We double up. Having 100% coverage after the deductible is paid makes up for the extra we pay in premiums (otherwise we'd have to hit a family totally of $6,000 before full coverage would kick in!). If your out of pocket max is more than the cost of premiums it's probably worth it.

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  • bkenanbkenan

    I would say find out how the two insurance companies coordinate benefits with each other.

     

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  • missmlpmissmlp member
    My parents always did this but we only use my insurance since it is so much better and cheaper.  The only problem I can see about having secondary insurance is that the claim process is so much slower.  I have a primary and secondary insurance for dental because this is the only way the Federal government has it and it is a pain.  It takes almost 6 months or more for my claims to be completly paid.  The secondary will not be processed until the primary pays their part and if the primary is fighting not to pay a portion of your bill it will totally hold up the process for secondary insurance.  The secondary will not even start  their claim process until the primary claim is processed and paid and we know how long that can take.  That has been my only downfall with having primary and secondary dental insurance.
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  • michele75michele75
    We have been double insured for awhile and we just started running into problems.  Apparently Georgia operates by the Birthday Rule, so if you are both on group plans then whoever has the early month/day will be the primary insurance.  It has caused quite a bit of confusion for us.  However, it is really nice when it all coordinates and the claims get paid.  I would just double check that both insurances coordinate benefits with each other.
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  • maykatmaykat member

    imagemichele75:
    We have been double insured for awhile and we just started running into problems.  Apparently Georgia operates by the Birthday Rule, so if you are both on group plans then whoever has the early month/day will be the primary insurance.  It has caused quite a bit of confusion for us.  However, it is really nice when it all coordinates and the claims get paid.  I would just double check that both insurances coordinate benefits with each other.

    We had this same problem and we didn't even have secondary coverage.  DH's company accidentally enrolled him in medical coverage.  His birthday is 10 days before mine and this caused a huge issue with coordination of benefit especially when we only had my insurance plan.  I would definitely look into the coordination of benefits.

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  • SuwaneeGirlSuwaneeGirl

    So few people ever actually receive good benefits from doubling up. It's usually not worth it.

    Items to consider:

    1. His employer may not permit him to stay on his plan if you have family coverage available. This is becoming more and more the norm.

    2. The birthday rule will determine whose plan is primary. Plus, the plans will have rules about the benefits they will pay on claims that are already adjudicated under the primary policy.

    3. Unless you have major medical issues which could quickly reach the cap of services on one policy, it's probably not going to pay to have him double up. (The lifetime coverage caps are going away under healthcare reform anyway.)

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