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Extended cover laws burden employers; Adult dependent mandates create headaches.

Article Excerpt
Byline: JUDY GREENWALD

Employers are coping with a growing number of laws that extend the age to which insured plans must offer coverage to employees' adult dependent children.

While there is variation in these laws-which now have been passed in more than two dozen states-they generally require employer health plans to offer continued coverage for adult dependent children still living at home.

And while the cost is not generally considered significant, the laws do create administrative burdens for employers, particularly those with multistate operations.

Previously, these state laws, which do not apply to self-insured plans, generally required that health plans cover employees' children up to age 19 if they did not attend college, or generally to 24 if they were full-time students. But measures that have been passed over the past couple of years extend coverage in many cases to age 25 or 26. In New Jersey's case, coverage must be offered up to age 30, which is the oldest cutoff among states.

And...

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