My wife and I are separating,can I keep her on my medical insurance.Does my employer have any say in this?

Question

My wife and I are separating,can I keep her on my medical insurance.Does my employer have any say in this?

Answer 1

Your employer has no say in this.  You're still married to her.  She HAS to stay on your plan.  Once you're divorced, she has to come off, and your employer STILL has no say in it.  

If you don't notify them when the divorce is final, they (the insurance company) can come after you for all the claims they've paid on her behalf, that they shouldn't have.

You can't make changes to a group plan, outside of open enrollment, without a qualifying event.  Seperation is NOT a qualifying event.   Divorce IS.

Answer 2

If you're married your employer has no say.  She can live in a different state as well as it doesn't matter....unless you have an HMO because she's out of the service area.  There may be an issue then.

But, yes keep her on, besides you don't want to be one of those jerks who drops their wife/ex-wife without notice...not that you would...I'm just sayin'....

Answer 3

It depends on your state where you live, actually, and what the divorce decree says. Sometimes, the divorce decree will read that someone keeps the health insurance, especially in today's climate of very high premiums. Now, whether your employer will still cover that person on the group plan (and thus, the discounted rate you pay, if they pay any part of it) is up to the employer. Check your contract, and also check with your attorney. It would be irresponsible for an insurance professional to give you a concrete answer in this forum without having all of the facts, and knowing every state's law.

Answer 4

Sweet jesus you have gotten some potentially misleading answers here.

Question - are you going to be *legally* separated, or are you just going to stop living together for awhile?  That makes a difference.

An employer *can* define their benefit plan to state that a legally separated spouse is no longer eligible for insurance benefits.  Do all employers choose to do that?  No.  But you need to find out if your employer is one who does.

A few ways you can check...

- Look at your benefit booklet (aka Summary Plan Description, aka Certificate of Coverage, etc.)  under the Eligibility section.  If a legally separated spouse is no longer eligible on your particular employer's plan, it would say so right in your document.

- Ask your HR rep what happens if you legally separate.  Will your wife continue to be eligible?

(Again - this all is in reference to *legal separation* where a court document is filed.  If you're just not going to be living together anymore but not filing papers with the court, then she can stay on until you're divorced.)

Its a good idea to double check before filing the separation papers.  I used to do dependent eligibility audits for large corporations, and there were several instances where we discovered a legal separation and retroactively terminated the spouse back to the date of the legal separation.  (Which means that payments were taken back for all of her claims between the legal separation and the date it was discovered.)

In conclusion...yes, your employer could have say in it, if they chose to define a legally separated spouse in the benefit plan as "ineligible."  The only way you can know for sure whether your particular employer made that choice is to look at your plan guidelines and/or ask your HR rep.

Here are some links for reference showing that some employers can choose to make a legally separated spouse lose health insurance coverage (again, not all employers use that criteria...but none of us here can say whether *yours* does):

From a legal site giving divorce advice to women:

http://www.womansdivorce.com/separation-...

Benefit sites from a few employers showing that they treat legally separated and divorced spouses the same (loss of coverage):

http://www.wgaplans.org/html/HSPD00120.h...

http://benefitspd.saic.com/life-events/g...

Oregon Department of Insurance Information showing that legally separated spouses are considered the same as divorced (for insurance purposes):

http://www.oregoninsurance.org/forms/mis...

(look at the paragraph "qualifying events" here...)

http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/emplo...

You get the idea...at any rate, the only way you can know how your particular employer handles legal separation is to ask.  Its completely wrong for someone who doesn't know your specific employer's policy to say that "your wife can't be kicked off if you separate."

Answer 5

You may keep her on your medical insurance until you are divorced. Check with your insurance company to be sure.

Answer 6

I believe you have to stay married for that.    No spouse no insurance.