You are not required to have a secondary form of health insurance. There are some benefits to having it, and there are also some problems that come with having secondary health insurance. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide if this is something you want, or if you need it.
The benefits of having a secondary form of health insurance are many. It is a way of limiting your out of pocket expenses for health care, because the secondary insurance should cover at least some of what your primary insurance company refuses to pay for. Having secondary insurance gives you a second chance when your primary insurance company chooses to deny payment for your medical bills. The bill would be passed to your secondary insurance company, instead of directly to you.
There may be some situations where you, or a family member, will need a certain kind of care, despite the fact that your primary insurance company denied covering it. In these cases, secondary insurance can be extremely helpful. Another benefit of secondary insurance is that this kind of insurance might cover vision and dental care, when your primary insurance does not.
There are also some problems that come with secondary health insurance. One problem involves trying to figure out which insurance is primary, and which will be secondary. This is especially true when a family is trying to determine which insurance will cover a child. This can be problematic, because a medical bill must be sent to the primary insurance first. If you aren’t sure which one the bill should go to, this can cause the bill to be paid late, or not at all. This is how medical bills cause debt, and ruin credit scores. Different insurance companies might have their own system for determining which of your health insurance policies is going to be considered primary, and which will be considered secondary. This can add to the confusion.
Another problem involves lack of communication between the primary and secondary insurance companies. Sometimes, they don’t talk to each other. This can leave you scrambling to discover which insurance got sent a particular medical bill. If the doctor’s office sent the bill to your secondary insurance before sending it to the primary insurance, the bill may be denied. It takes time to sort everything out. This may result in you paying out of pocket for medical care, and waiting to see if you get reimbursed. Just because you have secondary health insurance does not assure that you will never have to pay out of your own pocket for medical care ever again. It doesn’t work that way.