If you’re looking to find more breathing room in your budget (who isn’t), it might be worth taking a look at what you pay for your family’s health insurance. Most small employers cover 50-75% of an employee’s health insurance premium, but the employee is responsible for paying the premium for dependent coverage. If your whole family is covered on your employer’s group health insurance plan, you might be able to save a significant amount of money by moving your spouse and/or dependents onto an individual plan. Here’s a few reasons why:
* On most group health insurance plans, there is a single rate for “children” that is the same whether you have 1 child or 8 kids. As a general rule, if you have 1-2 kids you are almost always going to get a better rate by placing them on child-only individual plans, where if you have 3+ kids you might be better off on the group plan.
* If you work for a small employer (especially under 25 employees) and there are people with significant health conditions, that group has likely been “rated” – meaning the premium has been elevated over the initial quote due to enhanced risk. It could be as high as 66% higher. That higher rate obviously applies to everyone on the plan. If your dependents are healthy, you will likely save a lot of money each month by moving them onto individual health insurance coverage (as opposed to paying the group rate + 66% or whatever).
* If you are a younger worker and most of the employees on the group plan are older, you might well find that you can save money by moving your dependents onto individual health insurance plans.
There are some companies (particularly in South Carolina) that offer very good child-only coverage that might even be more comprehensive than your group plan (at a better price). If you’re looking to find some more breathing room in your budget, let AC Forrest help you assess whether adjusting your family’s health insurance coverage makes sense for you.