The Guide

Family Health Insurance

Enrollment Guidelines & Open Enrollment

You must decide which family members to add to your group health plan when you initially enroll as a new employee. If you choose not to add a dependent at initial enrollment, you will need to wait until your employer's open enrollment period. Always ask your employer when their "open enrollment" date is, because this will be useful in helping you decide if you want to add your dependents during initial enrollment, look for other family health insurance options, or keep your family members on their current health plan.

Adding A Family Member

You may be wondering why you can't just add a family member whenever you want. Well, there is a perfectly logical explanation. Group health insurance is "guaranteed issue" to all newly enrolled members. This means that no employee or dependent family member may be denied enrollment on the group health insurance policy because of pre-existing medical conditions. If the insurance company allowed you to add your family members at anytime, most people would delay adding their family members to their coverage until they were in need of medical treatment. This would affect the overall healthiness of the group, which would force the insurance company to increase premiums to all persons insured under the policy.

When Is Your Company's Open Enrollment?

If your company's open enrollment period is only a couple of months away from your initial enrollment date, you are taking less of a risk in waiting to add your family members to your group health plan. The further away the open enrollment period, the greater the risk you are taking by not adding your family members during initial enrollment. It is never advisable to leave any family member without health insurance, but some families are forced to do so for financial reasons. There may be other options available for insuring these uninsured family members, which we will address in later sections.

Related Blog Posts

Re-Evaluate Your Medical Insurance

Note: The information and advice provided in this Guide to Family Health Insurance may not provide the best advice for every situation. The best options for your family's medical insurance may be unique and require the advice of a local advisor. We highly recommend that you consult with more than one insurance broker in your state to gather and compare alternative opinions. The owners of HealthInsuranceFinders.com are not responsible for any decisions you make in regards to your family's health insurance through the information provided in this guide.