So, this is the first time since Obamacare that we have had to establish that we have enough health insurance that we don’t need to buy it from the University. For D1 & D2, who are already in college, we just tick a box saying that we have enough and are declining the schools offering.
However, UChicago wants a whole lot of information (which they asked for from D3, of course), including:
-Annual Premium
-Deductible
-Annual out-of-pocket maximum
-HSA/HRA annual contribution
I thought that this was a bit much, so I wrote to the office saying that our premiums, HSA, etc., were not really relevant to making sure we had enough insurance, and that we are on BC/BS, so pretty sure they meet the legal requirements, and I would rather not give that information. They wrote back- in an encrypted file! - saying, sorry but if we didn’t provide the info we would be billed for the university’s health care coverage.
Is UChicago an outlier? I am amazed that they can even require this information.
Sounds right. We need to provide the same…except they don’t care about the annual premium.
And frankly,mew had to provide the same info to both DS and DD colleges every year they were enrolled…2003-2010 in undergrad schools. And the same to DS’s grad school.
It’s not irrelevant. They want to be sure that your kid will have insurance for all reasons while they are in college.
We weren’t asked for our premium. None of their business IMO, but for the rest yes, if they want to make sure that your kid has what they consider to be adequate coverage.
We were asked for policy # etc. but not premium. I think they want to be sure you don’t just have standard policy and not a “disaster” type of policy with a huge deductible. I’d just provide the information as requested. (note that we actually found it cheaper to take our college student off of our policy and use the school’s policy which had basically the same coverage).
As with any organization policy, it probably arose from some problem they had with some student that they are determined to not have again.
UCSB required some detailed confirmation of insurance, but I think it was more in the nature of confirming that there were in-network providers (docs and hospitals) within a short distance from campus, and my memory from an earlier thread is that they required students with Kaiser to buy other insurance because there weren’t nearby providers.
I’d guess asking about premiums is for one of two reasons. One is so they can offer their own insurance if it’s cheaper. Second is so they can gauge what families at UChicago pay so they can calibrate what their insurance plan should cost in the future to make it attractive to students and families.
It has nothing to do with the ACA though and I’d guess that if you pressed them you wouldn’t have to provide it.
What if your employer pays for a good bit of your family’s premium? H is retired, but his former-employer pays for most of our monthly premium (we pay a small portion). What would be provided to a school? our small portion? If so, that would suggest that we have lousy coverage, when in fact, we have a Cadillac plan.
We haven’t had to provide any info to any school, ever.
Are schools really going to have people pouring over the details of families’ plans? Are they really going to be able to catch all the details w/o having to waste a lot of man-hours?
My first thought was that they were using the students to build a database of plans for separate research (possibly, as @romanigypsyeyes suggests, to fine tune their own pricing). Second thought was that somebody put together a super-comprehensive questionnaire to cover every eventuality. But I pushed pretty hard and they wouldn’t budge: we tell them everything, or we pay for their insurance.
USC asks for lifetime max, plan deductible, out of pocket max, plan name, the type, group #, id info and age that they are no longer eligible for coverage, address info on ins company, plus a series of yes/no questions that your policy is comprehensive, has access to providers in LA, etc. No premium question though. Just filled this out for the zillionth time (every year). I know USC is going over the details for sure.
Huh? Having medical coverage is a requirement for attending college. Heck, it’s even the law in some states-- Massachusetts, for example. (But still, unclear why they need the premium amount…)
We just had to provide provider name, group# and insured# and the University (actually, it’s outsourced vendor) determined we were good. They had an outsourced vendor provide the search and ensure all of the details. In our case, he is going across the country so they required that local providers accept his insurance or you have to take theirs.