When your spouse passes away, you have several important things to take care of both personally and professionally. One of those things is making sure your health insurance coverage stays in place. Under normal circumstances, if you are a dependent, you would not be able to adjust your health insurance cover. There are, however, qualifying events that allow you to alter your coverage. This means you can remove or add people and also make additional changes to your coverage during this time. This article discusses how dependents can ensure that they have health insurance coverage.

A Qualifying Event

Qualifying events are any type of event that changes the structure or core of your family. This can mean the death of a spouse, the birth of a child, or children moving away from home for the first time and going independent. Since the death of a spouse most definitely is a qualifying event, you have the opportunity at that time to make any necessary adjustments to your health insurance policy. Your insurance agent will help you determine if an event is significant enough to adjust your policy.

Special Enrollment Periods

Special enrollment periods accompany a qualifying event and will give you enough time to make any necessary changes to your insurance. You will have to provide documentation to support your qualifying event and prove your eligibility. Special enrollment periods provide you with the same opportunities as open enrollment. Since open enrollment happens only once a year for a few days, you will need to have a qualifying event to be eligible for the opportunity to adjust your policy in any way. Special enrollment periods usually last for 60 days, starting from the QLE.

Know Your Options

If you lose a spouse or have any type of qualifying event, you will want to know what all of your options are. The best way to find out what options you have is to discuss your needs and any possible changes with your insurance agent. They will be able to evaluate your existing policy and determine what changes need to be made to your coverage. In most cases, they will be able to offer you multiple plan options to choose from.

Losing a spouse or primary breadwinner can be devastating. You can contact Nick Agliato at Steve Wilk Insurance. You can also reach him by email at nickAgliato@wilk4800.com. When you are ready to sit down and discuss your options, you can stop by 310 S Main Street, Suite C, in Lombard, IL. He and his team have the answers you will need to make the necessary changes.