Youth Pastor Wife's Insurance

We have been in our church for just over a year. We are working hard with an older congregation to help them see the benefits of youth ministry. God sent a young man our way to a few weeks ago. He is fantastic.
I know that his being at our church is a tremendous asset. We really want to keep him. We are providing Individual health insurance for him.
Do you guys find that providing insurance for his wife would be a common practice?

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Comment by Leena Prindle on November 25, 2009 at 3:00am: Looks like it is the female yp's chiming in here. I'm full-time ministry at our church.
I guess my question would be does she have any other options for insurance (does she work a job/hold a career that has health benefits? If yes, than I wouldn't think it should be required to offer it. If not, then I would would suggest you cover her. My husband is a structural engineer and the companies he has worked for have always (ok except for the first company) had way better health/dental/etc insurance than my church/denomination had to offer. So I,and our children, are covered under my husband's insurance. The companies have fully covered his portion of the insurance, then they pay half for the children and my husband pays full coverage for me. Rather than have a separate insurance I've just asked to have a 'medical stipend' that is about equal to my portion of the insurance costs and it works fine. Except for the time period where my husband was laid off for work, it would've have been nice to have a supplemental for at least our children.

I think if I asked for insurance for my family - the church would support an insurance that would cover all of us, but would likely only pay fully for me and partially for the children and then we'd pay for my husband. That's in this recession time of course.

That's my experience.

Comment by Erin Foellmi on November 4, 2009 at 8:08pm: In my bible study this week we were challenged by Adam Hamilton to ask these three questions when making descisions..
1- What would glorify God?
2- What is the loving thing to do?
3- What would I want done to me if the roles were reversed?

I would think that providing healthcare for his wife would be a positive answer to all those questions. As a full-time youth minister myself I know I would love my church to cover healthcare for my family.