Health Insurance Information

Under the regulations, everyone in F-1 and J-1 status is required to have health insurance coverage while in the US.

Fordham does have a health insurance plan which it offers to students.  At the beginning of each semester, you are automatically billed for Fordham’s international student health insurance coverage. You can choose to either retain this coverage (as most of our international students do), or to waive this coverage by obtaining your own, independent coverage.

Online Health Insurance Enrollment/Waiver Request Process
In both cases, at the beginning of each fall semester (and other semesters for first-time new students), you are required to complete an online insurance registration process through the plan's webpage. In this registration process, you will either confirm or request to waive this international student health insurance coverage.

It is VERY important that you complete this process. If you wish to retain Fordham’s health insurance coverage, this registration notifies the provider to include you in the coverage. If you wish to use Fordham’s insurance plan, you MUST go online and confirm your enrollment, even though you may have already been billed. If you wish to waive Fordham’s coverage, it is not possible to do so without going through this online process.

Please check the University's Health Insurance Info page for the most up-to-date deadline to complete the online registration/waiver process.

You must complete this process even if you will waive Fordham’s health insurance coverage.  Please see our Waiver Information section at the bottom of this page for more important information about insurance waivers.

For more information, visit the plan's webpage. Please make sure to review both the Base Accident Plan Booklet and the Student Health Insurance Plan Booklet. This site also provides a Summary of Benefits and coverage, for quick, concise information about your coverage, and a Glossary of Health Coverage and Medical Terms to help familiarize you with important health insurance/medical terminology.

Enrollment
When you begin the online insurance registration process, you must choose to either enroll in or waive Fordham’s insurance plan.

  • If you will be requesting a waiver, you should have the information about your other insurance in front of you.
  • If you will be purchasing the Fordham insurance plan for your dependents, you should have your credit card or bank checking information available (student premiums are applied to your student account, but dependent premiums must be paid directly to the plan administrator at the time of enrollment)

Note: The online registration process for enrollment and waiver requests is set up by the insurance company! If it is not open yet at the time that you check, please check back the following week.

New students cannot submit this online request until after they have arrived in New York and checked in with the OIS

Important Information about Insurance Charges
The International Health Insurance fee should be billed to your student account at the beginning of each term. The only way to waive this charge is to submit a waiver request based on equal or better coverage, and to be approved for the waiver.

Remember, even if your account has been billed, you must still go online and enroll in the insurance plan every fall.

Important Information about Fordham’s Coverage
Fordham University no longer allows insurance companies that do not meet or exceed the limits offered by Fordham University’s Student Health Insurance Plan. This is to insure that all international students are covered by a plan that is comparable and accessible to provide health coverage. More information can be found under student health insurance web page.

Details about the plan coverage and other helpful health insurance resources can be found on the plan's webpage. 

The insurance company has told us that they do not mail out insurance cards. However, you may access your online insurance card for more information. You can print your insurance card by navigating to the “click here to reprint your ID Card” link. This printed card has all the information that a doctor might need.

If you enrolled in Fordham’s plan in the fall term, you will automatically be enrolled in the spring term (and the summer term as well, for grad business students). You do NOT need to take online action for the spring/summer terms. You only need to take online action once a year, in the fall (early September).

HOWEVER, if you plan to use your Fordham insurance plan at the start of the spring/summer term, be aware that your coverage for that term might not be activated yet. If possible, you should contact Maritza Rivera-Garcia in the Office of University Health Services BEFORE you use the plan, so that it can be reactivated immediately.

If you have questions about what the Fordham plan covers, how to use the plan, or about filing a claim, please contact Maritza Rivera-Garcia, Insurance Compliance Administrator:

Maritza Rivera-Garcia, Health Insurance Compliance Administrator
Email: [email protected]

For health insurance concerns, you may contact Ms. Rivera-Garcia. However, for any other health-related concern, including questions about immunization, you must email [email protected].

  • Waiver Information

    Important Information about Waiver Requests
    If you already have health insurance coverage that meets Fordham’s policy standard minimum insurance requirements*, you may apply to waive enrollment in the Fordham plan. This waiver would remove the insurance charge from your student account.

    Waiver Application Instructions

    1. Complete the online waiver request (see the “Online Health Insurance Enrollment/Waiver Request Process” section)

    2. Print a copy of your completed waiver request confirmation (the final page of the online process). You will receive an email after submitting the waiver stating that your waiver request is pending, and it takes a day or two for the insurance company to review the coverage.  You will receive an email to notify you whether your waiver is approved or denied. If the waiver is denied, the email will highlight the reason for the denial.

    3. This entire process must be completed before the deadline

    4. Failure to completely follow these instructions will result in the Fordham insurance charge remaining on your student account

      * Before purchasing a non-Fordham plan, you strongly recommend that you review the waiver eligibility requirements under the "waiver" section of Fordham's main health insurance webpage. 

    If you enrolled in Fordham's insurance plan in the Fall, but now you want to waive out of Fordham's plan for the spring semester, you must complete this waiver form in addition to the above instructions! 

    Remember, you will need to complete this process every year at the start of the fall semester.

    If you enrolled in Fordham’s insurance plan in the fall, but now want to waive that plan for the spring (or summer) term, you can do so. However, the online waiver will not be available to you (because the system thinks you are enrolled and want to remain enrolled). You should complete all the other steps and bring your application (with everything listed above except the online waiver confirmation page) to the Office of University Health Services.

    If your waiver is approved in the fall term, then you are waived for the whole year (fall, spring, and summer terms for grad business students; fall and spring terms for all other students.) The process resets every fall, so you will need to complete another waiver every fall while you are a student.

    NOTE: the Fordham insurance charge WILL appear on your student account at the start of every term. But, it should be automatically removed within the first few weeks of the term. If the charge has not been removed from your account after 3 weeks of the term, please contact Maritza Rivera-Garcia, Health Insurance Compliance Administrator.

    If you waived the Fordham insurance plan in the fall, but now you want to enroll, you may do so. Please contact Maritza Rivera-Garcia to become enrolled.

    Maritza Rivera-Garcia, Health Insurance Compliance Administrator
    Email: [email protected]

    For health insurance concerns, you may contact Ms. Rivera-Garcia. However, for any other health-related concern, including questions about immunization, you must email [email protected]