Insurance Coverage: Things To Consider When Getting Married

If you or your significant other picked Valentine’s Day to pop the question, there’s plenty of work ahead to plan your life together. Among the wedding plans and post-wedding plans, don’t forget to talk about the insurance implications of combining your households. From your car insurance to your health insurance, getting married can affect all of your coverages. To help understand these changes, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) offers these tips to help soon-to-be-wed couples.

Health Insurance

• When deciding what to do about your health insurance, start by evaluating your current and future health care needs. Review the provisions of the policies you are choosing between with those needs in mind. Remember to check for any policy exclusions or other limitations on pre-existing medical conditions.
• If you have group health insurance, you are allowed to add your spouse to the plan outside annual open enrollment because marriage is considered a qualifying major life event. Contact your benefits administrator to find out what you need to do. However, be aware – some insurance companies require formal notification of marriage within a certain number of days.
• If you have an individual health insurance plan, some insurance companies may require proof of insurability before covering your new spouse. This means they may be required to meet underwriting guidelines before getting coverage. Contact your insurance agent for specific enrollment requirements for spouses.

Life Insurance

• A life change – like marriage – can be a good time to consider life insurance. It’s never easy to talk about these things during such a happy time, but life insurance helps secure your family’s financial future. It also helps ensure that your estate will be allocated to the beneficiaries you have chosen.
• When evaluating an individual life insurance plan, you’re looking for one that fits your financial situation. For more information about your life insurance options, go to http://insureuonline.org and pick your life stage, then select the life insurance tab.
• If you already have life insurance, you’ll probably need to update your beneficiary information to include your spouse. Contact your insurance agent or company for the necessary forms. If you have questions about choosing a beneficiary, consult with an estate attorney. Or, if this isn’t your first marriage, you may need to consult an attorney to see if there are any legal restrictions to changing your beneficiary information.

Blended Families and Health Insurance

• If your newly combined household includes children and you need to provide insurance coverage for them, review your options.
• If you have group health insurance through your employer, you can add new dependents to the policy outside of the annual open enrollment period. Contact your employer’s benefit administrator for the specific requirements and enrollment forms.
• If you have an individual health insurance plan, proof of insurability may be required to add the child(ren) to your policy. Make sure to review any limitations of coverage for pre-existing conditions before enrolling your child(ren).
• You will need Social Security numbers to add dependents to your individual or group health insurance coverage. And be aware that the insurance company may require you to provide documentation proving the relationship between you and the child before providing coverage.
• In many states, a parent’s health insurance can now cover dependents through their late 20s. Call your state insurance department to learn more about how your state laws affect your dependent coverage. To find contact information for your state insurance department, visit http://www.naic.org/

More Information

If you have questions about your insurance coverage, contact your state insurance department. Visit http://www.naic.org/ for contact information and Web links to your state insurance department.