Student health insurance vs. parents’ insurance?

[Anonymous]

I would love some advice from seasoned parents: our daughter is an incoming freshman. If she is covered under our health insurance, do we opt out of student health insurance? Or do we take the student insurance and drop her from our policy?

Or, as I am guessing might be the case, do we keep her covered by both student insurance and our policy? I am interested in what the norm is in this case (if there is a norm).

[Anonymous]

We opted out of student policies. Kid are still covered under our plan.

There is no norm as every policy is different.

[Anonymous]

We had to switch them to student plans because our insurance kind of sucks outside the DMV.

It’s basically a $150/month net increase (cost of student plans less what we save removing from our plan).

The student insurance is much better than ours. It actually more than paid for itself due to a random health event for our kid. So instead of paying a very high deductible, we paid $50 total for an emergency health procedure.

I realize this isn’t the case with most people…so don’t take one anecdote as anything.

[Anonymous]

There is zero point to keeping them covered under both plans.

I don’t think your insurance ever comes into play if you opt for the student insurance.

[Anonymous]

I looked at two things: cost and providers. It was cheaper to keep DD on our plan and there were plenty of in-network providers near her school, so we're keeping her on our plan (she's also an incoming freshman). There's a mandatory health fee at her school which covers things like counseling, flu vaccines, emergency contraception, etc. Agree that there's no point in having her on both plans.

[Anonymous]

We are keeping our son on our health insurance. Our health insurance is good and we to are too lazy to figure out which cover mores, which is cheaper, etc.

[Anonymous]

If you can find providers near her school, opt out of school policy. If she’s moving away and no providers under your policy, go with the policy school offers. Her school nearby?

[Anonymous]

I kept them on our insurance and declined the student coverage. It's good insurance and makes no sense to pay for insurance they don't need. Also keep in mind that it may be difficult to add them back to the policy if you drop them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can find providers near her school, opt out of school policy. If she’s moving away and no providers under your policy, go with the policy school offers. Her school nearby?

Thanks, all! Her school is only about an hour away, and the student health center will see all students regardless of who is giving them coverage, so I think we are going to stick with our coverage.

[Anonymous]

We waived the school's policy, but in reality, we submit a request for a waiver, they review the policy we have and if it provides local coverage, then they allow us to opt out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We waived the school's policy, but in reality, we submit a request for a waiver, they review the policy we have and if it provides local coverage, then they allow us to opt out.

Yeah, this is the procedure at my two kids' colleges. It's not really just a free option to waiver...your existing policy needs to meet their minimum requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We waived the school's policy, but in reality, we submit a request for a waiver, they review the policy we have and if it provides local coverage, then they allow us to opt out.

This is the case at the school where my son will be attending out of state. We are looking at changing our policy during the fall enrollment period in my workplace to a PPO that has coverage there. The school's policy is 5000+ a year, while a change in policy for us will little, if any, increased cost.