Coverage Under a Spouse

Health insurance is important to have, while the monthly premiums can seem high, health care without insurance is incredibly expensive, and something most cannot afford, thus having adequate health insurance is essential to maintaining your health care.

Insurance is a product where you have tons and tons of choices, deductible amounts, premium amounts, coverage amounts, etc. and it can be very confusing because there is so much to choose from. However, it all comes down to a few simple questions:
What are you willing to spend monthly? (premiums)
How much out of pocket can you afford before your insurance pays out for major healthcare costs (deductible)?

How much can you pay for prescriptions? (prescription plan)
What are you willing to pay to see a doctor for regular check-ups? How much for ER visits? (copays)

That is basically what the if's, and's and but's are with insurance. However, there is a whole other realm of insurance when you have coverage under a spouse. For most people one of the two spouses has insurance either provided by their work, school, or otherwise. This would mean they are the primary holder. If they are married and the plan they have covers their spouse as well, they become a secondary holder of the policy. This basically means that they get the same benefits, but they aren't the one who purchased the policy.

If both people work, and both of their jobs offer insurance coverage and benefits, typically one or the other will opt not to have insurance because of their coverage under their spouses plan. However, should they both opt to receive insurance they will have double coverage. In this case, sometimes one set of insurance (the primary set) will cover everything after the deductible and copays, and the other set (where you are the secondary holder of the policy because you have the coverage under a spouse) will pay the deductibles and copays, which means you have no money out of pocket other than your premiums.

Coverage under a spouse is not something to be worried about, the benefits are usually the same for both the holder of the policy and the spouse. In some rare cases, if the male holds the policy, a female may not get as good of maternity, or other benefits specific to females, but this is rare.

Insurance coverage can be individual, so just because your spouse has insurance does not mean you are covered by the policy. In some cases the holder will opt for a family plan where the spouse and any children or dependants are also covered, in other cases, only the policy holder will have insurance. This is a much cheaper option, but then the rest of the family has no coverage.

When considering insurance, see if you can get coverage under a spouse because this is often a less expensive option than obtaining a separate individual policy.