There are a lot of people who have gone through a divorce, but who still remain on their ex’s health insurance plan. It may seem like the easiest solution at the time. Keep in mind that there is the potential that you could be dropped from that health insurance coverage without being specifically told about it.
It is no secret that finding affordable health insurance is a challenge. The majority of people who have health insurance are getting it as a benefit through their employer. These types of plans will typically cover the employee, the employee’s spouse, and the employee’s children. Most of the time, it makes good economic sense to have the whole family covered under one health plan.
Things become challenging when a couple gets divorced. Perhaps your ex is the person who was getting health insurance through his or her employer. Your ex might want to keep your children covered under that plan, but not everyone will choose to continue to cover their ex spouse. Some employers do not allow employees to cover the person whom they are now divorced from on their health plan.
Let’s say that you are divorced, and your ex’s employer allows people to keep their ex spouse covered through their employer sponsored health insurance plan. At first, this might be the easiest solution. It would give you some time to find a new health insurance policy, and you wouldn’t have to worry about having something happen while you had no health insurance coverage.
Staying on your ex’s health insurance can also be very risky. Most, if not all, employer sponsored health insurance plans have a renewal period. There is potential that changes to the policy will have been made between when you got divorced, and whenever a renewal period happens. You are not the policyholder, so the insurer might not have to inform you about those changes.
In other words, it is possible that you could be dropped from your ex’s health insurance plan without ever being specifically informed about it. You might not learn about it until after your unpaid medical bills, that you believed your health insurance would cover, arrive in your mailbox.
Not every couple who gets divorced manages to stay friendly with one another. There is the possibility that your ex could choose to drop you from his or her health plan out of spite. If your ex feels that he or she doesn’t trust you to pay for your medical bills (after the insurance covers a portion of it), then your ex might choose to drop you from the plan in order to avoid getting stuck with your bills.
Finding affordable health insurance isn’t easy. It isn’t necessarily a bad idea to remain on your ex’s health insurance plan for a little while, as you get back on your feet. Using your ex’s insurance for years and years, though, comes with a great deal of risk.
Image by Ben Babcock on Flickr