Shared Open Enrollment

[msilenus]

DW and I have abutting open enrollments.  We'd always been coordinating our options, but this time we did something different: she was busy when I wanted to be hashing this out, so she just logged me into her benefits portal and turned me loose.

An accidental discovery came of this: there is a world of difference between the kind of coordination you can do when two people are hashing things out based on their independent knowledge of their plans, and what one person can do when researching both at the same time.

It turns out that we could get her plan down much cheaper than we'd been thinking in previous years.  We're kicking her off of my plan, which will free up the COB fees.  Those more than pay for her own insurance, which also comes with a $500/yr spending allowance that will more than pay for her out-of-pocket, barring the unforeseen.  Keeping the kids on my plan is enough to max out my own HDHP/HSA company contribution benefit, so we aren't missing anything.  We're probably also going to move as much life insurance as we can over to her plan because the coverage there seems more efficient, even for me.  (I have some more hashing out I need to do with my HR on that point.)

I think next year is going to be about $1.5k better for us than last year, just from optimizing benefit plans.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

Good tip- though it won't work for me, since my wife is a SAHM. One thing I would add, though: consider looking into the private market for life insurance (if you haven't already). My wife and I switched to private term policies last year, and we ended up with better coverage for less than my employer offered. Better still, we don't lose the coverage if I lose my job. Something to consider, anyway.

[mbk]

My wife is SAH. The policies at my employer are generous. I am switching to a different plan which will save close to $1k for 2014. 

[rocketman48097]

When my wife used to work, we use to have separate health insurance but I always went on her dental and vision, since it was substantially cheaper to add me than it was for me to pay for it at my own work. 

We actually did this as a strategy before we had kids so our deductible would be lower when she gave birth, vs. adding me the deductible would have been double.  Once we had two kids though, we all went on her family plan until she quit.  Now everyone is on my plan as this is our only option.  Luckily, this isn't bad coverage except for dental, which is excellent coverage but very expensive. 

You should always coordinate plans with your spouse, always.  The money my wife USED to contribute to her health savings account still exists, over 1k this year is still left in that account for future health care expenses, all because I planned ahead and explained to her my reasoning for maxing out her contributions.