If a student chooses to waive out of the university’s health insurance, Western Health Advantage or SHIP, a wavier will be posted on the students account. Most often when a student waives out of our health insurance, they are covered under their parents or a spouse.

In some cases students choose to purchase their own insurance or through an employer.  A student can appeal to receive funds to assist with their insurance premium costs.

Appeal Process

  • Student provides evidence of monthly cost for outside insurance.
  • If the insurance coverage is purchased on the exchange, we can add the cost of the documented outside insurance expense for the student ONLY. (Outside insurance coverage may include additional dependents.  In this case, we cannot include other dependent health insurance expense as a student educational expense.  We will consider working with the student on appealing for an Alternative Budget Allowance to help with other dependent expenses.)
  • If the insurance coverage is part of a spouse/partner’s health coverage expense, we may consider adding back HALF of the cost if it’s two-person coverage. If there are additional dependents included in the health plan coverage, we will need evidence of the “family” coverage breakdown.  Again, we can only include the individual student expense, not dependents.  Obtain evidence of monthly employer expense (e.g. collect a couple of recent spouse/partner pay-stubs.  If there are more than two covered on the employer plan, we need more information than just the pay-stub – we may need to see the family coverage breakdown of insurance provided to an employee during Open Enrollment).