How long depends on your plan, not on Ohio. Ohio’s dependent-coverage sections attach to a policy whose coverage ends at a limiting age the contract sets. Federal law supplies the floor: a plan providing dependent coverage must continue to make such coverage available for an adult child until the child turns 26 years of age
, 42 U.S.C. 300gg-14(a).
Ohio’s sections govern plans that set a limiting age. They do not set one
This is the first thing to get straight, because getting it backward is where the confusion about dependent coverage in Ohio starts. Ohio Revised Code 3923.24 does not announce an age. It attaches a requirement to a policy which provides that coverage of an unmarried dependent child of a parent or legal guardian will terminate upon attainment of the limiting age for dependent children specified in the contract
.
Read the last three words. The limiting age is specified in the contract — your plan document, not the Revised Code. Everything the section requires is built on top of an age your plan already set. An article that tells you Ohio sets the age has described a statute Ohio did not write.
Ohio Revised Code 3923.24 does contain an offer provision, conditioned on its own terms, and it is explained in full in the article on what state law requires a group plan to cover in Ohio. It is not repeated here. If your question is the prior one — whether an Ohio employer has to offer coverage at all — that is answered in do you have to offer health insurance in Ohio.
Which of the two sections governs turns on how the plan is written
Ohio does not have one dependent-coverage section. It has two, one per vehicle, and a reader who checks only the first one they find may be reading a section their plan is not written under.
The second is Ohio Revised Code 1751.14, which reaches (A) Notwithstanding section 3901.71 of the Revised Code, any policy, contract, or agreement for health care services authorized by this chapter that is issued, delivered, or renewed in this state and that provides that coverage of an unmarried dependent child will terminate upon attainment of the limiting age for dependent children specified in the policy, contract, or agreement, shall also provide in substance both of the following:
That chapeau is the same shape as its Chapter 3923 twin — conditional on the plan’s own limiting age — but it governs a different instrument. A small-group plan written by a health insuring corporation is governed there; a plan written as sickness and accident insurance is governed by Ohio Revised Code 3923.24. Ask which of the two your plan is, because the rest of this page has places where the answer matters.
One structural note, recorded and left alone: both sections open by naming Ohio Revised Code 3901.71, the gatekeeper for Ohio mandates. What that means for either section is a legal question; the clause is on the face of both, and this page stops there.
The branch where attaining the limiting age does not terminate coverage
Here is the part a parent actually asks about, and the part summaries leave out. Ohio Revised Code 3923.24(A)(2) requires the policy to provide (2) That attainment of the limiting age for dependent children shall not operate to terminate the coverage of a dependent child if the child is and continues to be both of the following: (a) Incapable of self-sustaining employment by reason of an intellectual disability or physical disability; (b) Primarily dependent upon the policyholder or certificate holder for support and maintenance.
Notice the grammar, because it is doing the work. This is not an offer somebody has to request and an insurer has to extend. It is a prohibition on a termination: attainment of the age shall not operate to terminate the coverage. No request appears in it, and no second age appears in it either.
Both limbs are joined, and both are continuing — is and continues to be both of the following
. Incapacity alone does not satisfy it, dependency alone does not satisfy it, and neither one satisfied once and never again does either. A summary reading “if your child is disabled, the coverage keeps going” has dropped half the test and the word that makes it ongoing.
The health insuring corporation section carries the same branch, with one visible difference in whom the child must be dependent upon: Ohio Revised Code 1751.14(A)(2) requires that the child be (b) Primarily dependent upon the subscriber for support and maintenance.
Same structure, that chapter’s own vocabulary.
Proof has a clock, and the two sections do not word the re-demand the same way
The branch above is not self-executing, and the section says who has to produce what. Ohio Revised Code 3923.24(B) provides: Proof of such incapacity and dependence for purposes of division (A)(2) of this section shall be furnished by the policyholder or by the certificate holder to the insurer within thirty-one days of the child’s attainment of the limiting age. Upon request, but not more frequently than annually after the two-year period following the child’s attainment of the limiting age, the insurer may require proof satisfactory to it of the continuance of such incapacity and dependency.
Two duties sit there, and they belong to different people at different times. The first proof is on the policyholder or the certificate holder, on a clock that starts when the child attains the limiting age. The later proofs are at the insurer’s request, and the section limits how often it may ask.
The other vehicle words that limit differently. Ohio Revised Code 1751.14(B) reads: Proof of incapacity and dependence for purposes of division (A)(2) of this section shall be furnished to the health insuring corporation within thirty-one days of the child’s attainment of the limiting age. Upon request, but not more frequently than annually, the health insuring corporation may require proof satisfactory to it of the continuance of such incapacity and dependency.
The first-proof clock is the same in both. The re-demand limit is not worded the same: the Chapter 3923 section attaches a further period to the front of the annual limit, and the Chapter 1751 section does not carry that language. If you are planning around when a request for updated proof can arrive, know which of the two your plan sits under before you assume the schedule.
What division (C) preserves — and what the other section does not say
The branch does not override the contract, and Ohio Revised Code 3923.24(C) says so directly: Nothing in this section shall require an insurer to cover a dependent child who has an intellectual disability or physical disability if the contract is underwritten on evidence of insurability based on health factors set forth in the application, or if such dependent child does not satisfy the conditions of the contract as to any requirement for evidence of insurability or other provision of the contract, satisfaction of which is required for coverage thereunder to take effect.
That answers the question people ask next, which is whether the branch means coverage simply continues indefinitely. The section does not say that. It says attainment of the age does not do the terminating, then preserves the contract’s own conditions and puts a repeatable proof duty alongside. What the plan document says still matters.
The health insuring corporation section is different here, and the difference is easy to overstate. Read as served, Ohio Revised Code 1751.14 contains no evidence-of-insurability carve-back of that kind. That is a statement about the text of one section — not a statement that Ohio imposes no such requirement on a health insuring corporation anywhere, which would take a reading of a whole chapter this article did not do.
Dental and vision sit inside the same section
If you offer the ancillary lines alongside the medical line, it is easy to assume the dependent rules for them live somewhere else. In Ohio they do not. Ohio Revised Code 3923.24(E)(2) provides: This section applies to policies or certificates providing coverage for dental care or vision care services that are issued, renewed, or amended on or after January 1, 2024.
The health insuring corporation section carries that sentence in its own division, with the same date and the same words. So if you offer group dental or group vision beside the medical plan, the section reaches those policies too, on the terms that sentence states. It is also the cleanest staleness marker for both sections: a copy of either text without that dental and vision sentence is an old version.
What the section means by “health benefit plan”
One definition in Ohio Revised Code 3923.24(F) is worth quoting, because readers find it and draw more from it than it carries: As used in this section, ‘health benefit plan’ has the same meaning as in section 3924.01 of the Revised Code and also includes both of the following: (1) A public employee benefit plan; (2) A health benefit plan as regulated under the ‘Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974,’ 29 U.S.C. 1001, et seq.
That defines one term used inside the section. It is not a statement about which plans the section binds, in either direction, and nothing further is drawn from it here.
When a child does age off, federal law calls that a qualifying event
Suppose none of the above applies and the child simply reaches the plan’s limiting age. Federal law has a name for that. Under 29 U.S.C. 1163, For purposes of this part, the term ‘qualifying event’ means, with respect to any covered employee, any of the following events which, but for the continuation coverage required under this part, would result in the loss of coverage of a qualified beneficiary: … (5) A dependent child ceasing to be a dependent child under the generally applicable requirements of the plan.
Read the trigger and you will see the same shape as Ohio’s chapeau: the event is defined by the plan’s own requirements, not by an age Congress wrote down. Twice in this subject the operative age belongs to the document rather than to the legislature — which tells you which piece of paper to go read.
The maximum period for that event takes two sections to reach, so the chain is worth showing. The event above is paragraph (5). The duration clause, 29 U.S.C. 1162(2)(A)(iv), applies In the case of a qualifying event not described in section 1163(2) or 1163(6) of this title, the date which is 36 months after the date of the qualifying event
— and paragraph (5) is neither of the two excluded paragraphs, so that clause is the one that reaches it. The same subsection frames the list as coverage ending not earlier than the earliest of the following
, which makes it a ceiling rather than a term. Write it down as up to, never as for.
The federal continuation duty does not reach every small employer’s plan
This is the paragraph it is easiest to skip, and skipping it is what makes an article wrong for a large share of the employers reading it. The federal continuation duty has an exception written into the statute that creates it. Under 29 U.S.C. 1161(b): Exception for certain plans — Subsection (a) shall not apply to any group health plan for any calendar year if all employers maintaining such plan normally employed fewer than 20 employees on a typical business day during the preceding calendar year.
If you run a small business in Ohio, check your own plan against that sentence, and note that it has more moving parts than a headcount. It looks to all employers maintaining such plan, not only to you. It asks what was normally employed, on a typical business day. It measures during the preceding calendar year and applies for any calendar year, so the answer can change from one year to the next without anything about your plan changing.
It is also not the same test as Ohio’s small-employer definition, and the resemblance is a trap: the two count different things over different periods for different purposes, and an employer who assumes that sitting inside one answers the other has answered a question nobody asked. Take this sentence to whoever administers your plan.
What this page will not do is close that loop into a flat negative. “So there is nothing after the plan” is a claim about every instrument in two chapters of the Revised Code and the whole of federal law, and no source read for this article enumerated any of it. The individual market and the Marketplace have their own rules about losing coverage, and they run through a federal regulation this article did not read and does not describe. That is the honest end: here are the statutes, here is what they say, here is the one that may not reach you — and the next step is your plan document and the people who administer it.
The bottom line
Ohio does not name the age. Both of its dependent-coverage sections attach to a plan that already says coverage ends at a limiting age the contract itself specifies, and both carry one branch on which attaining that age does not operate to terminate the coverage at all — for a child who is and continues to be incapable of self-sustaining employment by reason of an intellectual or physical disability and primarily dependent for support and maintenance. Which of the two sections governs turns on how your plan is written, and the federal continuation route at the far end does not reach every small employer’s plan.
Frequently asked questions
Does Ohio law set the age a dependent child comes off a group plan?
No. Both of Ohio’s dependent-coverage sections attach to a policy that already provides that coverage of an unmarried dependent child will terminate upon attainment of the limiting age specified in the contract. The limiting age is the plan’s. The statute governs plans that set one; it does not set one itself.
Which Ohio section applies to my plan?
That depends on the vehicle. A plan written as sickness and accident insurance is governed by Ohio Revised Code 3923.24. A plan written by a health insuring corporation is governed by Ohio Revised Code 1751.14. Both carry the same disability branch, and they do not carry all of the same qualifiers, so a detail question can turn on which one your plan sits under.
Does my child’s coverage end at the limiting age if they have a disability?
Ohio’s text says attainment of the limiting age shall not operate to terminate the coverage where the child is and continues to be both incapable of self-sustaining employment by reason of an intellectual or physical disability and primarily dependent on the policyholder or certificate holder for support and maintenance. Both limbs have to be true, and both have to keep being true. The section also preserves the contract’s own conditions, so it is not a promise that coverage runs forever.
Do I have to prove it more than once?
Proof of the incapacity and the dependence is furnished to the insurer within the period the statute names after the child attains the limiting age, and the insurer may afterward require proof satisfactory to it of the continuance of that incapacity and dependency on request, no more frequently than annually. The two Ohio sections do not word the limit on that re-demand identically.
Does the section reach dental and vision coverage?
Yes, on the terms the section itself states: it applies to policies or certificates providing coverage for dental care or vision care services that are issued, renewed, or amended on or after the date named in the statute. The health insuring corporation section carries the same sentence in its own division.
When a child does age off, can they take federal continuation coverage?
A dependent child ceasing to be a dependent child under the plan’s own requirements is a qualifying event under 29 U.S.C. 1163(5). Whether the duty reaches your plan is a separate question, because 29 U.S.C. 1161(b) excepts a group health plan for a calendar year where all employers maintaining it normally employed fewer than the headcount that subsection names on a typical business day during the preceding calendar year. Check your own plan against the statute’s own test, not against Ohio’s small-employer band — they count different things.
About the author
Nate Jones, CPCU, is the founder of Wexford Insurance and Wexford Health Insurance, an independent agency placing small-business group benefits in 9 states. Nate reads Ohio’s two dependent-coverage sections the way a small employer has to read them — vehicle first, then the branch on which the limiting age stops governing, then what the federal continuation statute does and does not give a plan the size of yours. Start with the Wexford Health Insurance quote form.