Health insurance is an important part of determining a child support obligation in the state of Iowa under the child support guidelines. It is, therefore, essential to determine who will carry the insurance, and how the cost regarding the health insurance will be allocated. You must further understand if the health insurance coverage is a state sponsored plan, such as hawk-I, or a private health insurance plan, to ensure that the proper child support calculation is completed.
Relative to a private insurance policy, the revised Iowa Child Support Guidelines state that the cost associated with the children having coverage should be determined. This occurs by deducting the “single plan” cost of health insurance under the plan from the “family plan” cost. For example, if there is a family plan that costs $300 and a single plan for the parent only, that costs $100 the difference of $200 is attributable to the remaining members of the family that are covered.
Under the revised Iowa Child Support Guidelines, in determining an accurate child support obligation, it must first be determined how many additional people are covered by the “family” portion of the health insurance plan and then the family portion of the health insurance premium ($200 in our example above) is divided by the number of additional individuals covered. For example, if there are four additional individuals covered under the $200 family portion of the plan, then attributable to each individual is a $50 premium. If there are two children covered under the family plan, the $50 is multiplied by 2 to arrive at the amount of health premium (or $100 under our example) that should be utilized in the calculation of the child support obligation. It should be noted, that if the health insurance plan covers “employee and children only”, and is not a family plan, the entire premium after deduction of the “single plan” is used as the children’s portion of the health insurance premium.
A completely different approach is used if the children are covered by the state sponsored hawk-I plan. If this is the case, a cash medical support obligation will be required by the individual paying child support. The cash medical support will be the cost of the hawk-I premium.
It is important to speak with a family law attorney to understand the recent revisions to the Iowa Child Support Guidelines regarding this issue. Should you require additional information on this topic, please feel free to contact Simpson Legal Group, LLC at (712) 256-9899.