Can 1099s be covered under small business group health insurance?

[Prague]

Does anyone know if 1099 contractors can be covered under small business group health insurance? Here is our situation - even though we are retired, DH still does some consulting work for a small company owned by a good friend (only on an ad hoc project basis, so no fixed # of hours per week, but pretty small # in total). The friend is willing to add DH on his small group health plan, however, when he reached out to the company that he outsources the HR functions (benefits, payroll, etc), he was told that only W2 could be added or 1099s that work over 30 hours/week. Do you know if this is a legal restriction, or company policy or insurance carrier policy? We definitely know other owners of small businesses that offer health insurance benefits to 1099s and not all 1099s work near full-time....We have a small business ourselves but with no employees. We have been told that in order to qualify for group health insurance, we need to have at least 3 people in the group and they cannot be related to each other, i.e. family members of the owner.

Curious what everyone's knowledge/experience on this...

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

There isn't a federal law that would restrict this, but the insurance carrier most certainly has some rule(s) that might restrict this. The company should contact the insurance company to query.