Insurance Costs for Child Support Worksheets
If the Court has ordered an individual to provide health insurance for the benefit of the minor child, then the cost of that insurance will be placed on the Worksheet in that person’s column. The Court may inquire of the parties as to who has insurance available to them and what the cost might be. Courts do not generally have time to inquire who has the better insurance.
If one party has family coverage automatically provided through work, the Court will generally go with that. Sometimes both parties have family coverage in place because of subsequent families. In that instance, the Court will usually allow both parties to place the health insurance costs on the worksheet.
Calculating an Individual’s Insurance Cost for Family Coverage
You calculate the insurance cost of family coverage by taking the cost of family coverage and subtracting out what it would cost the individual to insure just them self. This then allows you to determine the marginal cost of family coverage. You divide the number of persons covered under that family coverage and that gives you the cost of insuring each person under the family coverage. Notice that you do not include the person who is the employee when you divide the family coverage, because that person is removed from the analysis when we remove the cost of individual insurance for the employee (the individual insurance cost pays for the employee). This analysis would include all other persons covered by the insurance, including subsequent spouses and step-children. You then multiply the individual cost for family coverage by the number of children involved in the case and put it on the child support worksheet.
Example coming soon.