What Is Secondary Insurance Coverage?
Secondary insurance coverage is a supplementary insurance policy that provides benefits when your primary policy does not. Often covering dependents, it is considered a safety net for families when a primary insurance policy covers only certain family members or is limited in it's benefits.
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Differing Coverages
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Some plans have restrictions on covering certain prescriptions, procedures or types of visits. If you have primary coverage through an employer and your spouse has a different policy through employment, you can become dependents on each other's plans. The second policy may help to cover expenses for each of you that the primary insurance won't cover.
Children
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Insurance plans offered by an employer may cover only the worker and not additional family members. In this case, a secondary insurance plan can be purchased to cover the family members not on this primary policy.
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Determination
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Generally, the primary plan is the one that the member has been with the longest, according to the Insurance Free Advice website. This may be from employment or as a spouse on a primary policy. The policies may have provisions to determine how a secondary plan is utilized, if there is one. In most cases, the secondary insurance does not pick up any claims until benefits from the primary policy have been exhausted.
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References
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