To qualify for a bad beat jackpot i different on different sites or rooms. When party had a bad beat jackpot i think you had to have quad nines (or better) and still lose. Both you and your opponent have to use both your hole card. This means if you had 89 vs your opponents AA on a 999 A A board you will not qualify as your best hand is 9999A. If the board was AA2 99, you would qualify, as both of you use both your hole card for the best poker hand possible.
Like I wrote this i different from site to site. I think a lot of live rooms used to have Aces full of kings beat as the lowest, to qualify for the bad beat jackpot. I would also like to ad that a bad beat jackpot is sometime designated for just some of the tables (as the rake will be bigger). There may also be terms by a minimum player at the table, no talking about a potential bbj.