[Monkeydad]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

As long as your wife is listed on your plan, the birth is covered. As others have said, you have a limited time to automatically add you child as a dependent. Do not sit on this. Call ahead and get the forms necessary, and be ready to roll. Also, make sure the hospital and insurer on the same page as to who the beneficiary is. After the birth of my son, I promptly added him to the coverage, BUT - the hospital kept listing my wife as beneficiary of the services. The insurer denied the bene's as they were obviously for an infant but hospital simply resubmitted without using proper code - huge snafu.

Your rates will go up.

Yep, get the ball rolling early...don't wait for the SS# to arrive before starting the insurance application process, they can fill out the paperwork and add that in later to activate the child's coverage. It can take 6-8 weeks for your child's SSN to arrive, near the end of the time they're covered under the parent's policy.