Insurance through work question

I’m not sure if this is the right place but hopefully someone might be able to help me. I’ve had insurance through work a couple of times and have never experienced this. Currently, my family plan costs me $208 per pay period and I get paid biweekly so $416 a month. I lost my previous coverage at the end of January and signed up for my new coverage (through work) around the end of March.

When signing up and since I had an “eligible life event”, they asked when did I lose coverage so I said January 31st which is correct. Therefore, by default my new plan was effective February 1st (but I was signing up for it in the middle of March). I didn’t receive any plan information until beginning of April when I called and finally received my ID cards mid April.

Now, the main issue is, I’ve been charged $416 for the last two pay periods instead of $208. Are they charging me for the month of February? I really don’t understand why they are charging me double. I’ve paid for 2 months of coverage within a month plus my first ever charge was $208 the first pay period. Right now, I’ve paid $1000+ for insurance I’ve had for almost a month and a half. Can they ‘backdate’ coverage like this? They automatically assigned my effective date to February 1st because of when I lost previous coverage and did not allow me to choose when I wanted my coverage to start or by when I signed up for the benefit.

I’ve had previous employers do this ‘effective date’ thing before but I had never been charged for a month I didn’t have actual coverage.

This is all over the place but hopefully someone can share any insight. Thank you.

submitted by /u/Admirable_Building93
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