Your divorce will determine different questions regarding the care of your children, such as how you and your ex will share custody and which parent will receive child support. However, the issue of health insurance for your offspring could also come up.
If you are responsible for child support, you may also have the duty to provide insurance to cover the medical needs of your children. In fact, the New Jersey Courts website explains that a parent can seek a court order for the other parent to supply insurance for children.
Working out insurance questions
According to Kiplinger, parents should consider some important matters to decide how to best provide coverage for their children. One question is whether your children have preferred doctors or care providers.
If so, you and your co-parent should determine whether your respective insurance policies have the doctors as in-network providers. Whichever parent includes the doctors in his or her insurance network may take up the responsibility of covering the children.
Additional considerations
In the event neither you nor your ex has the preferred doctors of your children in an insurance network, other options are available. You could switch the doctors of your children to your in-network providers. However, if you cannot change physicians, you and your co-parent may see which one of you has the best coverage for doctors not in the plan network.
Resolving these questions could help you and your ex determine which parent can supply the better coverage for your children. By making health insurance decisions during the divorce settlement stage, further court action over this issue might not be necessary.
