One of the many hats I wear is managing our student insurance program. It stinks to have to handle this. We don’t have a health center, and we have had a mandatory health insurance plan since way back when. Students can waive it by completing the waiver process, which includes verifying that their insurance is “comparable coverage” and providing their insurance information (insurer, policy number, primary insured). I would have no reason to request the amount of their premium … I can only assume the school wants it for statistical purposes. As others have pointed out, though, it doesn’t mean much if the employer is subsidizing many thousands a year in excess of what the family actually pays in premiums.
From my point of view, I have to have the policy for our international students on an F-1 visa, and I don’t have the time or expertise to counsel students moving from other parts of the country on how to purchase insurance that will cover them in our area. I have tried to find information from the state insurance agency that would be helpful for this purpose, but it is impossible (and I spent a year recently working in group benefits - at least I sort of know something about this stuff). Mandatory school insurance is just easier. I did recently ask our HR office if their benefits consultant could take this on, though, since while our policy is low-cost, it’s got a $350 per incident deductible. I’d like to see better coverage for our students.