Do I need to pay for a month of COBRA coverage I didn’t use?

Ownership of the current small business I work for changed recently and it impacted our health insurance. There was a few month gap between coverage from our old insurance to our new one that starts on September 1st. During this few-month gap we have been using COBRA and my employer has been adding extra to my paychecks to cover any extra expenses I would've had to pay because we are on COBRA.

I went to terminate COBRA effective August 31st and the email response said I have the option to terminate it on July 31st as long as I am ok with any insurance claims for August being denied. I haven't had any insurance claims for the month of August so paying to cover the month of August would feel a bit like throwing money away toward nothing. The total amount I would have to pay is $1,200 with $600 of that coming from my employer. This leads me to my questions…

What would you do in this situation? Should I pay for a month of coverage I don't need? Is it wrong to keep the money my employer gave me and not use it to pay the premium, especially if they were planning on paying it to me anyway?

submitted by /u/Ok_Reputation1924
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