Studying factors influencing the demand for commercial health insurance is essential in insurance economics. Family ties are seldom investigated, although they play an important role in human behavior, especially in eastern countries such as China. We construct an index to measure family ties and employ the Heckman two-stage model and the instrumental variable method to examine the effect of family ties on the demand for commercial health insurance. We find that family ties can contribute to the individuals and families’ purchase for commercial health insurance. We also find that this effect on high-income families is much greater than that on low-income families.