Does your college student have adequate health insurance protection?
Your child is headed off to college, you will be spending tens of thousands of dollars on their education and you haven’t taken the time to think about their medical insurance. Big Mistake!
Should you buy student insurance through the university? If that’s all you get….”yes”, but there are better choices. What are those? Carry them as your dependent on your employer’s group plan or get them their own individual plan.
Here are some pros and cons which may help you….
University plan
Pros…coverage is generally guaranteed and fairly inexpensive.
Cons…coverage is limited (50k to 100k policy maximums) and generally they don’t get to keep it once out of school. In extreme situations we have seen students become ill, have to leave school, and lose their coverage at semester or year end. This puts you and them in a difficult situation where their school coverage has now been lost and they cannot qualify for new coverage.
Employer Plan
Pros…coverage always guaranteed and it’s an extension of your coverage so you know what they’ve got. Depending upon who your employer plan is with, your full-time student should be covered to age 23 and sometimes to age 25.
Cons…your outlay of premium can be higher and you must make certain you meet your employer’s plans definition of full-time student as well as age maximum.
Individual Plan
Pros…your best choice for least amount of premium outlay and always portable. Good catastrophic plans can be had for $54-$70/month with policy maximums from 5 million and beyond.
Cons…fully underwritten, so should your child have any health issues and be unable to qualify, then your employer plan would be the best choice.
After reading this post I decided to check my insurance benefits with SSU in California and the coverage max was only 50K. That is really not that much coverage in a catastrophic event!
Wow that’s not cool at all. 50K won’t get you much. Thanks for this post. I’m going to check my own coverage now!