When two individuals from a family each have separate health insurance policies that include family coverage, then secondary health insurance applies. Secondary insurance benefits are very useful for families who incur high medical bills and the primary health insurance benefits are exhausted. However, there are secondary health insurance issues.

Deciding which insurance policy is primary and which is secondary is one of the most common problems that happens, especially when the claim is for a child. It is necessary to determine this as the claim must be sent to the child’s primary insurer first. The claim can be submitted to the secondary insurer only when the primary insurer has paid its portion of the bill.

It was more commonly assumed that a father’s health insurance policy represented the child’s primary insurer. These days, in the event that both parents have health insurance policies covering the family, the parent with an earlier birth date is assigned the primary status. This decision does not take the year of birth into consideration. It depends only on the month and date. If the child’s mother was born in January and the father in June, then the mother’s insurance policy is generally considered to be the primary. As the practice may differ between different insurance companies, it is best to check this with them.

Insurance companies may also require you to disclose information on secondary health insurance coverage. This is to prevent fraud by profiteering by making claims from both insurance companies at the same time for the same benefit.