<p>2 different upstate SUNYs with wildly different premiums, one is $500/yr, other is $1660/yr.
Both schools enrollment is roughly the same so, this doesn't make sense.</p>
<p>Is there a difference in benefits?</p>
<p>We just got the health insurance bill for the school that my son attends. There was a significant increase from a year ago for health coverage, although I don’t the amount of the increase (letter just explained that there was a big increase). We were able to opt out because our son is already covered on a family plan with superior coverage (did the same thing last year, which is why I don’t even how much it went up). Can you do the same thing?</p>
<p>Yes, we waived both. We have great family coverage, thank God.</p>
<p>It just struck me that it’s a substantial disparity for 2 upstate SUNYs</p>
<p>It also would make sense for the SUNY system to negotiate coverage for all the schools with a single carrier at a uniform premium–but I don’t know why I expect anything to make sense anymore.</p>
<p>That $500 is very low. I’ve seen a lot of health insurance plans but none that inexpensive. What do they use? </p>
<p>I agree with MommaJ entirely. One of mine went to a SUNY, and we have one nearby we have used for a variety of purposes and there is no connection between them when trying to transfer credits or any kind of procedures. Makes too much sense to stream line things I guess.</p>
<p>The UCs each have their own insurance and definitely it was better at some campuses than others</p>
<p>I forget the $500 company but, the $1660 is Aetna. I didn’t look at the policies themselves because it wasn’t an issue for us.
Over $1K disparity was shocking.</p>
<p>The health insurance at S’s school will be almost $2800 (!) this year. It’s insane.</p>
<p>(edit) I looked up last year’s number, this year’s is a 17% increase.</p>
<p>And that doesn’t include the $650 “student health fee” that you can’t opt out of.</p>
<p>I would really like to know which SUNY has the $500 insurance. I want to find out where they are getting their health insurance contracts. Are you sure that isn’t just the student health fee?</p>
<p>Yes, $210 first semester, $290 second…Binghamton</p>
<p>be sure you’re comparing apples with apples … there are so many differences in plans… deductibles, prescriptions, co-pays…
I just signed my daughter up for RIT student health insurance - which is through aetna -a nd it’s $984 for the year … there was another option that was (i think) $500 more which had a higher per year maximum coverage. The school charges $75 for per quarter for access to their student health facility</p>
<p>stage, fwiw, UB’s student insurance (Aetna) is now $2K/year…ouch! It is mandatory that students have local coverage and they are randomly verifying it. D is having trouble with the verification process right now as their verification consists having Aetna CALL the student’s carrier. Our carrier will not give out member info by phone and Aetna and UB have both refused to send a written request! Not a HIPAA expert, but I think that may be the reason for the ins co’s policy. Can someone tell me if UB is wrong here? If so, I would like to ask them to consider changing their process so we (and others) don’t get caught in this year after year…it’s a pain and potentially quite costly!</p>