If you have multiple health insurance policies, you’ll have to pay any applicable premiums and deductibles for both plans. Your secondary insurance won’t pay toward your primary’s deductible. You may also owe other cost sharing or out-of-pocket costs, such as copayments or coinsurance.

How does having primary and secondary health insurance work?

Primary health insurance is the plan that kicks in first, paying the claim as if it were the only source of health coverage. Then the secondary insurance plan picks up some or all of the cost left over after the primary plan has paid the claim.

How does secondary coverage work on health insurance?

Secondary coverage pays co-pays, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs up to the term limit. If you do not have any primary insurance in place that would cover you, a secondary policy will essentially act like a primary coverage.

When is secondary insurance irrelevant to primary insurance?

If the primary insurance covers a bill completely, the secondary policy is irrelevant. It’s when the primary insurance leaves some of the medical bills unpaid that having two policies pays off.

What happens when you have two health insurance policies?

When someone has health insurance coverage under two different policies, one is the primary insurance policy and the other is secondary. Both insurers follow rules for coordination of benefits to determine who the primary insurer is.

Can a second insurance claim be processed as primary?

However if the secondary overpays the balance due on the claim, they might be processing this claim as primary. The 2nd insurance might do an audit in the future, and trust me, if they find out they are in fact secondary, they will request a refund from the provider. I am having this same situation. A patient has Aetna and Blue Cross.