College Student Health Insurance Advice

Under most standard health insurance policies, your children will only receive insurance coverage with your policy until a certain age. Usually this age limit is set at 18, although it can vary amongst different insurers.

If your teenager is going to study at college, this limit is normally extended up to a maximum age of 25 providing that they are in full time education and are not married. Once they past this limit, they must take out separate policy for themselves.

For this reason, it is very important that you check with your health insurance company at what age your policy stops providing coverage for your child. A good age to do this is when your child turns 18, as this will leave you with plenty of time to make alternative arrangements for medical insurance coverage if necessary.

Understanding Rules & Regulations

If your child is going to college, then it is still worth contacting your insurance company to find out what rules and regulations there are for your child to continue receiving coverage under your policy agreement while they are studying.

For example, some policies require that your child maintains a certain grade average each semester in order to qualify for coverage.

You may also want to find out what your insurers policy is on when your child registers for each semester, whether they will still receive coverage during the summer holidays and what happens if your child temporarily drops out of college for some reason.

Although this may all seem like a lot of bother, it is preferable to find out the details of your health insurance policy regarding your child now, rather than waiting until claim time where you could end up facing some nasty surprises.

College Health Plans

When your child goes to college they will usually be offered some kind of college health insurance plan, sometimes, this may even be included in the price of tuition.

A common concern that many parents have is whether or not they should keep their child insured under their own policy, or allow their child to be insured under the college health insurance policy. So what should you do?

Well, first of all, it is worth looking in detail at the health care plan the college provides. Although they will vary from college to college, in general, you will find that they offer similar advantages and disadvantages as detailed below.

Advantages

Most of the time you will find that student health insurance policies offered by colleges give very good coverage for preventative care such as checkups, physical exams and eye exams.

There also tends to be good coverage for local doctor care at the student health center, and cover in the event that your teenager needs to go to hospital.

However, this coverage usually only extends to the university hospital for a limited period of time, typically, a maximum of 30 days. This means that any medical costs incurred after this period, your child will not be insured for.

Disadvantages

Where college health insurance policies tend to fall short is when you are dealing with treatments that need to be carried out away from college grounds, and also for treatments that result in large medical bills. Also, there tends to be no coverage offered during the summer holiday periods.

In addition, you may find that you are only covered for medical treatments which are carried out in certain hospitals. Although in most cases this shouldn’t pose a problem, if you are seriously injured and need to go elsewhere to see a specialist doctor or surgeon for example, you could then find yourself uninsured and facing large medical bills.

Hospitals for which you will be insured for are generally referred to as being “in network”. It is therefore a good idea to check which hospitals are considered to be in this network and how far this coverage extends. This way you will be fully aware of the level of protection that your child’s policy is actually offering you.

Summary

In summary, a college or student health plan is good for providing medical coverage for your teenager while they are in college and have not suffered from serious injury that requires expensive medical treatment.

Students medical plans tend not to be as good in providing your teenager coverage once they are outside college bounds, outside college term time and when they require expensive medical treatment such as major surgery.

Should You Buy Student Health Insurance?

If it is possible to do so, it is generally recommended to keep your child covered under your own health insurance policy, your family health plan. You can however, purchase the college health insurance on top of the existing coverage that your child is receiving under your policy.

This additional cover is usually relatively inexpensive, and can be worthwhile as your policy most likely does not cover expenses that are incurred in the college health center, whereas a college health plan does.

With this additional coverage your child will also benefit in the event that they are injured, because they will be able to receive treatment immediately at the college health center, rather than having to go all the way to your physician in another hospital.

In the event that they are seriously injured, your health insurance policy will provide them with the coverage they need and take care of any expensive medical bills resulting from the treatment that they receive.

Whilst it is true that money can be saved by keeping teenagers insured solely under their parents policy, if your teenager is at risk of injury because they play a sport, at risk of disease because they are in medical school or will be studying abroad, having additional health insurance is usually worthwhile just to give some added peace of mind throughout their educational career.

It is therefore recommended to take out both policies, as this will give your child the most complete coverage and protect them from unnecessary financial risks.

Note: If you do not want your child to be covered under a college health insurance policy then check to see whether the cost of their tuition already includes the cost of medical coverage.

Many colleges include medical insurance coverage in the price of the tuition, so if you do not need it, and can prove that your child is covered under your own policy, that coverage can be removed and the cost of tuition can subsequently be reduced.

Alternative Options

The large majority of students will be able to get adequately insured under their parents health plan, with a college health plan or a combination of the two.

However, some students may not be able to get such health insurance, and unless they are able to find something else to provide them with coverage, they will leave themselves exposed to a vast amount of uninsured financial risk.

Below are some alternative options for students who haven’t been able to get insured using the previously described methods. The video above also talks about some ways that college students can save money on their health insurance costs and other alternative options available to them.

1) Getting Insured When Working

Many students get a job when they are at college or university to help them pay for tuition fees and academic related expenses.

If you are unable to get health insurance through your college or university, and are too old to be covered by your parents policy, then you may want to consider getting insured under your employer’s health plan. Doing so can prove to be quite a cost effective solution for students, and also has the advantage of providing you with coverage throughout the course of the year and not just during term time.

Since most accidents tend to occur during school holidays, having this extra coverage could one day prove to be very useful and end up saving you a lot of money in medical bills. However, you will normally have to work at a job for a period of 6-12 months before you will qualify for an employer’s group plan health insurance.

So if you are approaching the age where you know you will soon be uninsured, then it is a good idea to get a job in advance that will provide you with medical coverage so that it will be available for you when you need it.

2) Private Health Insurance

Private health insurance can be tailored to specifically meet your needs and requirements by only insuring you against the risks which you feel most exposed to. This means that having private health insurance doesn’t necessarily have to be as expensive as most people think it is, because providing you know what you are doing, then you can get quite reasonable premium rates.

The downside to this however, is that the rates tend to increase quite sharply. Although, if you only plan on having this type of policy on a temporary basis, then this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The other major downside to having private health insurance is that even though private coverage can be quite reasonably priced, if you do not choose the right coverage options, then you will again leave yourself exposed to financial risk.

So you really need to have the time and know how to choose a good policy that will provide you with a sufficient level of coverage against common risks, otherwise you will just be wasting your time and money. For this reason, seeking out the assistance of an insurance agent or advisor is usually a good thing to do.

3) Medicaid

Depending on where you live, you may qualify for government run medicaid coverage. This however, is usually reserved for students who are on welfare, are disabled or are otherwise deemed to be from very low income families who are unable to cover expensive medical bills.

As a result, medicaid is unlikely to be a viable option for the majority of college students.

4) Community Health Center

If you can’t get health insurance at all, you can still receive medical treatment by visiting a community health center.

You will still have to pay for treatment however, but the cost is usually minimal as it is calculated based on your current level of income. If you are a student on a low income, you will therefore be able to receive medical treatment at very affordable prices.

Some of the services offered in community health centers include immunization, check-ups, prenatal care, treatment for mental health issues such as depression and treatment for drug, alcohol or substance abuse/addiction.

The downside to community health center treatment however, is that it tends to be quite limited in what services it can offer you. If you become seriously ill or injured for example, you are unlikely to get the level of care that you need especially if that care involves expensive drugs, lab tests or complex surgery.

Things To Look Out For

Taking out insurance can be a daunting process, as it is difficult to fully determine what sort of risks you are exposed to and therefore what you would benefit from insuring yourself against.

If you have never taken out insurance before, as will be the case for many students, taking out health insurance can become an even more daunting process as there will likely be many things that you are unfamiliar with. This could then result in you taking out the wrong policy and not receiving adequate coverage.

So if you haven’t taken out insurance before by yourself, it is strongly recommended that you speak with your parents to ask them for advice on how to take out the right policy. Or alternatively, with an insurance adviser.

Some of the questions that you should be clear on when taking out a medical plan are listed below. Providing you manage to cover all these points, you should do o.k.

• What is your coverage limit for medical expenses?

• What is your deductible limit?

• Do you have a co-payment ratio? If so, what is it?

• Can you change your deductible?

• Can you save money on premium rates by raising your deductible?

• What types of injuries or illnesses are you not insured for?

• Where are you insured?

• Where are you not insured?

• Can you see a specialist without referral?

• Are you insured when out of country such as when travelling abroad?

All of these points should be considered the basics in getting a good general health insurance policy that protects you against most common risks at an affordable price. If however, you are concerned about a specific risk that you would like to insure yourself against, be sure to add that to your policy agreement if it does not already provide you with coverage for it.