How To Add A Dependent To Health Insurance? 
Dependent children can be covered under their parent 's health insurance policies up to age 26 . The main questions are the timing of your wanting to add this dependent to your coverage or if a change of life status event has occurred that allows for the addition of a dependent to your policy . If it 's renewal time for your coverage then it 's simply a matter of requesting the paperwork to add thedependent to your coverage . In the context of group health insurance plans it is quite likely that if it is outside of your plan 's open enrollment period that a change of life status event will have to occur for you to be able to add your dependent to your coverage . The most common change of life status events are marriage , divorce , birth of a child , adoption of a child or loss of other health insurance coverage . If you had the dependent during your last open enrollment period and did not add them to your group 's policy at that timeand there has been no change of life status event in the interim you will almost certainly have to wait until your group 's next open enrollment period . Also , in one of the quirks of ObamaCare , spouses are not technically defined as dependents -LRB- I know , it does n't make any sense but remember our politicians did n't read the law before they passed it -RRB- . So , with health insurance rates rising sharply you are seeing more employers not providing spousal coverage , or allowing spouses to be covered only of they do not have coverage available through their employers -LRB- if they have one -RRB- , or you may see an extra charge assessed for covering a spouse that has crappy coverage elsewhere . Just a word of warning regarding possible surprises you might encounter in wanting to add a spouse to your coverage . 