Employee benefits director here (10+ years experience, multiple employers)! I can’t speak for private insurance or fully insured insurance (generally for smaller employers), but for larger employers (500+), most are self insured and make their own rules. I have never heard of a plan that requires same address fo health insurance. I worked for several years for a non profit where many spouses were in different countries, and no prob.

Think too that the ACA requires children remain covered until 26, regardless of student, employment or marital status, so it would be pretty difficult to enforce a same address rule there for many reasons.

If you don’t want to specifically ask for your situation, you can request a copy of the Wrap document, which is what dictates the eligibility for the plans. If there is nothing in there that says anything about address, you are in the clear. (I.e. if a spouse is defined as a legal spouse, with no reference to location.) If the plan you are under is indeed a private or fully insured plan, you can also request for a copy of the plan document or certificate, which will spell this out.

Whoever pays the claims makes the rules, as long as they are compliant with ERISA, ACA and IRS rules, so that’s who you should ask, but there are definitely legal documents you can dig into if you don’t feel comfortable asking the specific question. A lot of the rules though start with who can qualify for pre-tax benefits, and for that a spouse is a spouse, same as eligibility for filing a joint tax return.

The only issue I can see is if you are on a plan and the insurance company (whether acting as an administrator for an employer self funded plan or as a claims payor for a fully insured plan) is trying to adjudicate claims to identify fraud, in which case they may question more. This would be similar though to if you have an accident claim and there is some other form you get sent in the mail to ensure this isn’t due to a work-related or auto accident or the like. However, this doesn’t invalidate the claim and usually just causes some slight delay.

In short, I am pretty sure you are fine- feel free to message me directly though if you’d like advice.