Health Insurance

Question

I know a lot of people (myself included) plan on quitting their job several months before starting b-school. My question is: what are you going to do about health insurance? I'm not sure how early you can start your coverage through the school. Are most of you planning to just use COBRA?

riverripper · Answer

If we sell out house early and take off a few months then my wife and I plan on going onto COBRA for that length of time. Until she finds a new job and starts working wherever we move. She pays 25% of her plans cost so basically its going to cost us 4times what it does now...so it will be around $700 a month. That should only be for a few months though and is cheaper than private insurance cause there is a huge group discount for most large companies. I dont know when schools plans start but I doubt you can start them in May or June if you want to take a ton of time off. Anything is possible though, so you might be able to work that out. I have heard student plans are usually really useless, except if you have a major illness or accident.

solaris1 · Answer

As far as I know you can only use COBRA for up to 18 months, and the insurance company is allowed to charge you a small surcharge towards admin. expenses. I'd be very surprised if individual insurance through the b-school's parent university wouldn't be substantially cheaper than corresponding COBRA coverage. I do understand however that if entire families are involved then COBRA might just be the only reasonably affordable option.

Some insurers offer really reasonable private insurance plans for younger individuals - in Connecticut for instance, one can get very reasonable PPO coverage for less than 150$ a month. Compare that to premiums in New York that are around 400$ a month for private insurance covering ONLY hospitalization. $700 for a family of 4 is a steal by New York standards. I know my company paid >800$ in health insurance premiums per employee in New York.

riverripper · Answer

Cobra is a horrible idea long term, we would only use it for a few months if we take an extended amount of time off before school. School plans are probably closer to 2K a year which is far cheaper than cobra. That said if you are married and your spouse will be working then thats clearly the way to go and where cobra is great...that or you want to take time off before school insurance would kick in.

I think cobra on my wifes plan is 102% of the premium...could be 104%.

I think cobra on my wifes plan is 102% of the premium...could be 104%.

dabots · Answer

im planning on taking cobra. i think my rate is around $230 a month.

Praetorian · Answer

Some threads that might help you further. I am doing this so we can build up a set of links for the knowledge vault forum -- Sorry if these links do not answer your question.

Insurance after quitting job
103-t42213?

Quitting the 9-5
103-t42469?

Health Insurance
103-t44349?

kryzak · Answer

added to Knowledge Vault

togafoot · Answer

What are the options for Internationals? Moreover, for family members and dependent children? What's the typical cost? So used to having 'free' health cover.

Angel652001 · Answer

This thread is quite old, but I wanted to share something I learned. If you plan to quit within 60 days of when your school insurance begins, you can retroactively elect COBRA when you need it.

Meaning, if you quit on July 1st and your school insurance starts on September 1st, then you don't have to pay for COBRA unless you need the insurance. If on 8/28/08, something happens and you need health insurance, you can enroll in COBRA as of the date that you left your job. You just have to pay for the 2 months worth of premiums. If you can avoid any accidents by 9/1, then you save 2 months worth on COBRA insurance.

If you need insurance for more than 60 days before your school insurance kicks in, then I would look into temporary health insurance. It's only about $80-$100 a month, and it's nowhere near as comprehensive as regular health insurance and has a fairly high deductible, but it's a good "major accident" coverage.

kryzak · Answer

Thanks for the info Angel, I think it may be slightly different for each company. Mine gives 31 days where you can retroactively enable COBRA.

riverripper · Answer

By law I believe its 60 days from notification of your rights (they have a few weeks to do that).

kryzak · Answer

interesting, the letter we get is 31 days after your date of termination... Maybe the law is different in every state?

This is what I may end up doing instead of COBRA (other than my free 31 days)
https://www.tonikplans.com/plan_overviews_CA.php

riverripper · Answer

I believe its federal law...read up on it. Its also interesting that they limit it to 102% of the cost.

https://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fscobra.html

kryzak · Answer

thanks for the info river, I'll have to check with our benefits people at work. If that's the case (60 days), then I'm set!

riverripper · Answer

My wife gave her notice today and her boss did a whole walk through of what benefits she gets and stuff. I guess her boss's daughter just graduated college so she went through a lot of this, so its saving a lot of stress from my wife having to deal with some HR person.

kryzak · Answer

wow, she's lucky. My boss knows nothing about these things, and the HR person assigned to our department is also clueless. I've been digging through our company policies and stuff to figure out things like going Part-time and health insurance. Grrr...

togafoot · Answer

We've gone with Aetna, global coverage. Subsidised by my wifes previous employer, so full cover on everything. The wifes employer allows us to be covered for up to 18 months after she leaves for the whole family.

riverripper · Answer

Thats basically COBRA here but ours you pay the full cost the employer doesnt pay for anything.

We figure that we will be covered until mid/late September so by that time my wife will have started her new job and will be covered.

togafoot · Answer

Not used to all this health insurance stuff. Back in the UK, Health care is 'free', and in Japan there's a national health system. Our Aetna coverage isn't free, but because it's part of an employer group policy, it means it's cheap(er).

Health Insurance

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards