<p>Does anybody have any good experience with health insurance coverage after your student has graduated college? My husband is uniformed services - Tri-Care will cease to cover her when she is no longer a full time student - IF she goes to graduate school immediately - they only cover her till age 23y as long as she is a full time student- she will be 22y when she graduates in May.</p>
<p>Where do you live? My son actually opted to buy his own insurance rather than the student insurance at his school when he compared policies -- I think he pays about $50 or $60 a month through Blue Shield. Its a high deductible policy because he's still in school and can use the health clinic on campus for routine care - but there are a whole range of options to choose from. In my family we all have high deductibles because we hardly ever get sick or use the doctor - and even the high deductible plans allow a certain amount of preventative care without having to meet the deductible.</p>
<p>We had the same situation with our daughter this past Spring when she graduated from college. We had an additional concern in that we wanted her covered from when she graduated and for the following year when she would be overseas. We found out that she was covered under our family policy until the end of the month of her graduation date for regular medical and through the end of the year for dental. This was very helpful to know as she needed a physical and immunizations and she wanted one more low priced dental check-up before traveling. So, if your daughter needs anything like that, dates of when the insurance is cut off are important.</p>
<p>We ended up going with an international company that has a high deductible but before we chose that my husband also looked into his company's policy. They did have a policy just for recent grads and from other parents I've talked to, that's what many of them did - just stay with parents insurance company and have the grads pay their own monthly costs for a seperate policy. That's assuming the grad will get a job and their own insurance in a few months. Here's a link that might be helpful: <a href="http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/content/health/health-insurance-college-graduates.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/content/health/health-insurance-college-graduates.shtml</a></p>
<p>My son was able to pick up a short term (180 day) policy through his school's alumni association; after that, he'll pick up a plan offered from the AFM musician's union till he hits grad school next September. At that point, it's a choice to stay with the union sponsored plan or go with the school's health insurance. For my daughter we actually Cobra'ed (sorry- created new word) her on our existing policy for two months till her job sponsored insurance kicked in.</p>
<p>We picked up a year's worth of health insurance through the USC alumni association. Check and see if your student's alumni association offers that benefit.</p>
<p>Our 19 year-old does not attend college full-time so we had to buy him his own policy. We decided to also buy one for our 17 year old because it is so easy for something simple to happen while on the parent's policy that makes one uninsurable. For example, anyone who goes for any kind of mental health counseling, including drug counseling becomes uninsurable by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. A car accident with a head injury, cancer, diabetes - lots of things make a person rejected by the private policy underwriters. HOWEVER, once you have a private policy you can never be canceled for one of these things. The cost for the policies is only around $100 month plus a little more if they are on acne medication or some such thing. For my son, having his own policy could be important if he decides to work part-time or start his own business. Not everyone is lucky enough to get employment based insurance in this country.</p>
<p>The monthly cost of medical insurance varies around the country. There is nothing close to $100 a month in the NE (believe me, I checked) and many alumni policies do not cover all states. We were lucky to get my son coverage on my H's COBRA for $500 a month until his own job ins. kicked in.</p>
<p>Altmom, we got a no frills policy from Golden Rule which was considerably less than $100/month (kid in Mass.) We were really only concerned about major medical/catastrophic illness-- the rare cough and cold he could pay out of pocket if need be. His job's medical insurance kicked in earlier than we thought it would, but the cheapo policy bought a lot of piece of mind.</p>
<p>Good topic- I'm going to need this info real soon too. My insurance will cover d for about 2 months after graduation (August 2008)
but does anyone know -- As alot of insurance plans cover dependent child up to 25 years old if enrolled in post grad program; If d goes to grad school within year or two, can I reinstate her into my program??<br>
I know to check with my insurance Company when the time comes, but I was wondering if anyone was able to re-instate their grad student after they lost coverage due to college graduate status-
Thanks</p>
<p>Crabby
D has paid health insurance as part of her assistanceship (sometimes also called a fellowship) from her Grad School.This is a quite commom perk as a result of unionizing movement of grad students many years back.
She pays an additional voluntary premium for dental and eye coverage.As your D investigates Grad Schools, she can check to see if they offer insurance along with paid assistanceships.</p>
<p>I think it varies state to state. Here in NJ, you can keep your kids on your group policy until age 30 as long as they continue to live in the state. It's close to $300/month with my employer - called Horizon Dependent-30 through Blue Cross.</p>
<p>marny- It is in all probability policy specific, but I have yet to see a policy that allows reinstatement of a dependent "child" at the start of grad school if there's been a gap. Most policies I've seen say "full time student" and an age limitation. Graduation, separation from school, or exceeding the age limit result in termination of benefits based on your policy outline. If she goes to grad school, she'll have the opportunity to pick up the school insurance then.</p>
<p>If she takes a year off between bachelor's degree and grad school, she probably won't be covered unless she's lucky enough to be employed with health benefits, or self-insured. We're currently in the sam boat with son.</p>
<p>Do check with your insurance carrier specifically.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I have yet to see a policy that allows reinstatement of a dependent "child" at the start of grad school if there's been a gap>> </p> </blockquote>
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<p>Our Anthem BC/BS allows the reinstatement of dependent students onto the policy following time not covered. I have a family plan. I can add or delete members of the family. In CT a law will go into effect, I believe Jan 1, 2009 that requires health insurance to allow dependent offspring to remain on policies (even if they are not students) until age 26.</p>
<p>thumper- that's extremely interesting as ours is an Anthem BS/BC plan as well and ours does not allow reinstatement. I know there are many different levels and options of coverage in group as well as individual policies. I actually thought ours was fairly liberal as it provided for dependent ft student coverage to age 23.</p>
<p>That's why it's important to check with YOUR carrier. There's far too many variables.</p>
<p>S was covered with the Aetna plan until graduation and then had to get his own policy with Blue Cross for about $600+ per month (this was the bottom of the barrel plan, not top of the line by any means), since there is a pre-existing condition, and the insurance company discriminated forcing us to pay the maximum for not so great coverage. We were told that we would be able to get the top of the line plan after a year of putting up with the other plan, and lo and behold, it was perfect timing that Michael Moore's film came out in the theatres, and even though it was a month or so less than a year, he was, in fact, upgraded to the higher plan. Thank you Michael Moore.</p>
<p>We too had this issue and found out that since our insurance was a company group plan, the policy would cover our S until the end of the calendar year in which he graduated. That worked well for us, since he started a new job in August and his own company health insurance will kick in before ours expires. Very important to us as he too has some preexisting conditions that may affect his ability to get reasonably (!) priced insurance in the future.</p>
<p>Each state has it's own health plan policies. First place I would start is with your own policy. Find it, READ it and go from there. Every state is different, so giving specific advice may not apply. If you can't find your policy binder, call the insurance companies customer service department and ask.</p>
<p>If you cannot extend coverage and need a new policy MAKE SURE the policy is approved and for that matter the agent is licensed for your state. Always check with your OIC website to see if both the plan and the agent are licensed for your state. </p>
<p>WHY? because the new trend of "internet" buying policies has created it's own "boiler room" situation. There are bogus policies sold via the internet by bogus agents. Just cause you get a "policy" and make payments on it, doesn't make it real. </p>
<p>By all means, gather information and talk to whom ever you like, but always check things out. One of the biggest advantages of using your OIC to check it helps you prevent yourself from making a major mistake that you will not realize you've made until you need it. There are situations where people have bought coverage only to find out after an emergency (thousands of dollars) that they have none.</p>
<p>If you child (young adult) is attending out of state and you can no longer cover them, look to purchase where they are going to spend a majority of their time. Most policies these days are written to be the most advantagous to a local network. Most policies will provide for out of state coverage, but usually not to the same level. </p>
<p>Good luck, do check out both the company and the agent you buy from. Your OIC (office of insurance commissioner) can be of great service.</p>
<p>OK - so don't shoot me for this revelation. I decided to call my husband's benefits hotline to follow up on this issue. And yes, my husband works at one of those large pharmaceutical companies that is the subject of so much criticism these days for how much pharmas charge for drugs. Anyway, I was told they now follow the IRS guidelines for dependent children eligibility. What that means for us is that, when our kids graduate from college, as long as they aren't working full-time, and are dependent on us for 50% of their living and support (meaning living at home, or if she's living somewhere trying to find a job and we're paying rent, etc.), their coverage will continue until age 25.</p>
<p>I can't wait to call her and let her know. She's so paranoid about having to have a job lined up for the day after graduation in order to have medical benefits. This will give her time to return to our area and give the job market a good look. While her school's placement rate is very high, most of the companies that interview out there are East Coast locations, and she does want to come back to the Midwest. Phewwwww...</p>