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With COBRA, you have 60 days to elect AND it is retroactive. So in your situation your current coverage ends June 30, your COBRA election period is July 1 - August 29. Your new coverage kicks in on August 1. If (God forbid!) something terrible happens between July 1 and July 31 *that costs more than the amount it would cost you to pay for COBRA for the month* you can elect COBRA after the fact and it will roll back to your first day without coverage- e.g., July 1. You also have the option to cover fewer people under COBRA than you did while employed. So again, if- God forbid!- something happened to your kid, you could just elect COBRA for your kid and same would apply- retroactive to your first day without coverage.
Long way of saying you can hedge your bets and play the game to only elect COBRA if you need it- and only for the people in your family who need it. Of course you can only do this once- if something happens in July and you elect for your kid, and then later in July something ELSE happens to your spouse you can’t go back and elect again to add your spouse, but really- just wait until August 1 and IF you needed the coverage in July, elect it retroactively. Really simple.
That being said, I do not want to be penalized later on for having a gap in coverage.
Not to worry, the tax reform eliminated any penalties. You can have the gap without an issue.
Doesn’t matter at all to insurance companies. One thing to note, insurance at your current company usually runs until end of month. So if your last day is June 1st, you still have insurance with current until end of June, but if your last day is May 28th, you’ll only have insurance until end of May.
Not allowed. 😊
Maybe there’s a tax person here who can clarify specifics - but I believe you have to answer a direct question whether you’ve had a gap in coverage when you file your taxes. Not sure how the IRS would know if you lied though? I’m in the same boat so sticking around for responses
AM1 Federal penalty was ruled unconstitutional. CA will have a penalty of 2.5% of household income up to $695. I haven’t heard of the rules of if there is a minimum number of months similar to how the federal penalty is.
What I have done in the past was to negotiate with my new employer for them to cover my COBRA payment for one month. They cannot change the waiting period but if they want you bad enough they will pay for you to keep your old coverage until the new one kicks in
Yeah my company actually offered that to me.