Will I Be Auto-re-enrolled For My 2020 Health Insurance Plan?

You may have received a letter from your current health insurance company saying you will be automatically signed up for 2020 coverage, while also receiving a letter or emails from healthcare.gov saying you need to sign up again this year.

This is where a lot of confusion and uncertainty - and potential anxiety, can enter into the picture. Read on to find answers to your basic questions about how renewal or auto-enrollment works.

The first fear, despite a reassuring letter from your health insurance company, that may nag at you is that you would lose your health plan and be left without primary health coverage for you and your family through all of 2020.

You may have received a letter from your insurer, for example, and not from healthcare.gov. Or emails from the latter may conflict with statements by the former.

In most cases, you WILL be automatically re-enrolled in your 2019 insurance for 2020, and your insurer is not lying to you about this. Your insurer will explain to you which plan you will be signed up for if you do nothing before 15 December, 2019.

Will I Lose My Subsidy?
The second major fear of the insured is that, although they are indeed automatically signed up for insurance going into 2020, the subsidy will not be automatic and they will end up owing hundreds of extra dollars per month that they cannot afford.

Actually, your 2020 ObamaCare subsidy and health plan will both be automatic if you do nothing to change them, but they will go off of the information currently entered at healthcare.gov.

This could potentially create a problem - if not immediately, then over a year from now when you file your taxes for income earned during 2020. More on that below.

Why Else Might I Need To Take Action?
Why visit healthcare.gov or talk to an insurance agent or broker at all if so much is automated? First, you may need to insure an extra person this year or to drop someone off of the plan. Second, you may need to adjust your income or the amount of your subsidy you want applied to reducing your premiums each month. Third, there may be other changes, like moving to a new home or a new state, new contact information, or other profile data that needs to be changed.

If your income estimation for 2020 is too low, you may get too big of a subsidy and have to repay the excess when you file taxes later on. If your income estimation is too high, you might miss out on some of your benefits or have to wait a year to get reimbursed, again, when you file taxes on your 2020 household income.

These kinds of financial misunderstandings are obviously not what you want. And you also want peace of mind in knowing that both your health insurance provider and the government are on the same page when it comes to your 2020 health plan and subsidies. 

For further assistance in understanding how automatic re-enrollment for 2020 health insurance does and does not work, or for help in choosing and applying for your health plan for the year just ahead, contact the health insurance experts at Summerlin Benefits Consulting!