Having a baby, wife’s insurance is significantly cheaper

Hello there!

I was doing a bit of digging and it seems like my wife and I can save some significant money by switching to her employer offered health plan. We are both currently covered under my employers plan.

We are expecting our first child in a few weeks and I thought we’d be able to swap to hers given that this qualifies as an event that would allow us to do so. The problem is that her HR rep is saying that we can only change plans if we had opted into her plan at the beginning of the year… essentially a change inside of a plan unless my coverage were to end in an event similar to being fired. Our only option described by my wife’s employer is to wait until open enrollment and switch at that time.

My HR department seems to think this would qualify as a life event that would allow us to change so I’m just curious if anyone has had experience or more knowledge about what’s right here.

We stand to save $1500 in premiums and another $1500 with out-of-pocket maximums over the course of 3 months.