How long do you have health insurance after leaving a job?

When you leave your job you have a few choices. You can choose to stay with your employer’s health insurance plan for up to 18 months, get insurance coverage through a government health care exchange, or another insurer.

Question;

When I quit my job I was under the impression my health insurance would be good. I paid my monthly premium from my check so it seemed as if my coverage would continue. But, unfortunately my ex employer informed me that my insurance was cancelled the day I quit. Please let me know if this is accurate?

Answer;

Please keep in mind, the last day of your health insurance through your employer depends on the end date of the last day you were employed. Regardless of whether or not you quit or were fired. On occasion guidelines allow the coverage to continue all the way to the end of the calendar month. Others will allow coverage until the last day you were employed. You’re going to want to contact your ex employer’s benefits administration department and find out when the last date of your coverage was.

You should be eligible to qualify for COBRA health insurance at this point. With COBRA, if you quit your job voluntarily, you are entitled to continue with your employer’s group plan at your own expense for up to 18 months.

The benefits administrator or other personal of your ex employer should contact you and provide you with a packet with instructions on how to enroll for COBRA health insurance coverage.

More on COBRA Insurance;

If you resign or are terminated, you can choose to temporarily continue your current employer-sponsored health insurance through a federal law which is COBRA.

Here is the biggest issue.: You’re going to be paying the entire bill, oh yea, plus up to 2% for administrative fees. If you’re use to your employer paying part of the premium, prepare yourself for higher health insurance costs.

Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act was passed by Congress in 1985 to provide families with an insurance safety net.

Before COBRA was passed if you lost your health insurance from your employer there was a good change you would have trouble qualifying for health insurance coverage on your own. You’d either get turned down or encounter incredibly high premiums if you had health conditions.

There are more options under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But if you want to keep your employer-sponsored coverage after you lose your job, there is only one way, that’s COBRA. COBRA can continue coverage for up to 18 months. In addition, your spouse & dependents in “some” cases can keep coverage for up to 3 years.

You can elect COBRA if you lose coverage because:

• You quit your job.
• You were fired, unless it was for “gross misconduct.”
• Your hours were reduced.

In addition, your dependents can elect COBRA if they lose eligibility for coverage because of:

• Death of the covered employee
• Age, an adult child turns 26 and can no longer stay on a parent’s plan
• Divorce or legal separation from the covered spouse
• Eligibility by the covered employee for Medicare.

The law will allow you to continue coverage for up to 18 months if you are terminated or quit. Another reason is if an employer cuts your hours. In addition, there’s special cases that coverage will continue up to three years if the coverage loss was due to other reasons.

Please keep in mind that you must be covered by your employer-sponsored plan at the time of your job loss or other event. If not, you are not eligible for COBRA.

For more information regarding health insurance coverage please reach out to one of our awesome agents directly! We’d love to hear from you and answer all your insurance related questions.