Learning Tuesdays: Program Transcript
Open Enrollment & Benefits Update
Learning Objectives:
- What makes this open enrollment different
- What new benefits are available
- How the recent Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage impacted benefits
- How the Affordable Care Act impacts your benefits
Carolyn Mattiske:Good morning and welcome to Learning Tuesday. I’m Carolyn Mattiske, Learning and Development Administrator for the Research Foundation at Central Office, and I’m proud to present today’s session “Open Enrollment and Benefits Update”.
Our facilitator for today’s program is Mr. Tim Orcutt, Benefits Development Manager at the Central Office. We are also joined by Ms. Judy Moore Kellman, Account Manager with Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield. We will also hear from Mr. David Sauer, Marketing Specialist with Securian Life Insurance Company. And Ms. Shannon Vankirk, Senior Client Relationship Executive with Sun Life Financial.
Panelists will address as many of their questions as they can during the next hour and a half or so and as always I encourage you to submit questions to be addressed live. You may either call or e-mail the studio; e-mail the studio at or you may call 888-313-4822. This information will appear on the screen periodically throughout the session.
Also a link to the very brief exit survey is already posted on the live stream page. So after the program concludes please take two minutes and complete it. Your feedback helps us improve these programs so please share your reactions with us.
Today’s program and all Learning Tuesdays programs are archived and available on the RF website soon after the live event which means you have access to these training resources on demand any time you need them. Be sure to tell your colleagues who are unable to join us today that they can access this program as soon as noon today just by visiting the web page you are on right now.
With that I am proud to present Mr. Tim Orcutt.
Tim Orcutt:Thanks Carolyn. Today we’re going to go over an open enrollment in benefits update. With me in the studio is Judy Kellman Moore from Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield. We’ll get to her presentation in a minute but I wanted to go over what we have for you today.
First of all our learning objectives; what makes this open enrollment different? What new benefits are available in 2014? And how has the recent Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage impacted benefits? Also we’ll talk about how the Affordable Care Act has impacted benefits. So we’ll start with the open enrollment changes.
We have a new earlier start. Usually open enrollment runs from November 1 to November 30, this year it’s starting on October 15 so we’re already in it. It wraps up on November 15. If you go to the web – and click on the open enrollment quick link at the lower right corner you can access the special open enrollment page. That’ll have links to forms, instructions, and the benefits bulletin that should have arrived at your home earlier this week.
You have – at open enrollment we’re doing some new things. You have some special opportunities that you don’t normally have during open enrollment. First is optional life insurance; we have a new life insurance carrier starting in 2014, Securian Life. You may also have heard of them as Minnesota Life outside New York State. You can increase your coverage by one multiple or start at one times annual salary with no medical cautions, so that’s a special incentive their providing to us because you can’t normally increase your life insurance without medical questions during open enrollment. We’ll talk a little bit more, or we’ll hear a little bit more, about Securian Life in a minute.
The second special opportunity has to do with our voluntary short term disability coverage. That’s a great plan for especially new employees who haven’t built up a lot of sick leave. Our new carrier there is Sun Life and you can enroll or increase your coverage to the maximum allowed with no medical questions.
A pre-existing condition applies to new amounts, and what that means is that if you have had an illness in the past six months that you’ve been treated for and you go out on disability within the next 12 months, or the first 12 months in 2014, then that increased amount is not gonna PPO to your benefit. Otherwise if you – even if you had some kind of diagnosis in the prior six months if you make it more than 12 months then if, unfortunately, something were to happen to you afterwards then you’d be – the full amount would be covered. And we’ll see more about that in their presentation.
Some reminders regarding open enrollment. Flexible spending accounts; there are as a healthcare flexible spending account and a dependent care flexible spending account. They are separate; you cannot move the money from one to another, that’s the same every year. But you must re-enroll every year. You cannot just roll over like you can with the option of retirement or even for your health options. Flexible spending accounts you must re-enroll every year and there is instructions in the benefits bulletin and on the special open enrollment page I told you about to do that. You must do that online up through November 15 for 2014.
Some reminders on health plans; we’ve dropped Excellus Central New York. We’ve had very few employees participate in that and it was actually one of our most expensive plans. The Excellus Rochester Plan remains closed to new participants however if you already have Excellus Rochester you’re fine, you don’t need to do anything, and you’ll be able to continue with that coverage into 2014 if you want.
CDPHP now has one rate for all regions; before we had a capital district rate and a outside the capital district rate. Now everything is with one rate, a lower rate actually.
And then we have a new lower cost PPO option with Empire Blue Cross and Judy’s gonna talk about that a little bit later.
A reminder; did you know that we offer a fazed retirement program so if you are nearing retirement age you can faze into it by moving to a part time schedule for a period of up to three years, with management approval. And what that does for you is you can start collecting your retirement benefits, but still work part time, and you would get to keep your fulltime benefits. So if you have our – if you’re fulltime you have our long term disability you would get to keep that, which is normally not offered to part time employees but it would be in this case.
You can take up to three years to retire so that’s something to consider and if you’re at a location where you’ve got some valuable people, some brain power and you want to hang on to that that’s a great option to retain them as well.
We got some cool new benefits. Securian Life, who is our new life insurance carrier – we’re gonna be adding some enhancement there. You’re children are gonna be eligible from birth to age 26, that’s a wider range than what we currently have through Provincial. If you have a terminal illness you can get the full amount of your benefit in advance. It used to be with Provincial right now 75 percent is the most you could take out, but with Securian they’re gonna let you take the whole thing if you unfortunately should have a terminal illness. Most people need the money before they pass so that’s a great benefit.
There’s also an emergency traveler benefits for all travel. We currently have FrontierMEDEX and GeoBlue for our international travelers on RF business, but this will cover you for personal travel as well, so that’s a nice enhancement. Securian is also offering us group legal services and they’ll talk – you’ll hear more about that in a little bit.
So Securian Life is a – has – is our life insurance carrier and you’re gonna hear from David Sauer now to explain what they’re offering.
David Sauer:Hey everyone my name is David Sauer, I’m the Marketing Specialist for Securian Life and we are glad to be the new underwriter for RFs group term life and AD&D insurance plan.
For this presentation we’re gonna cover the plan enhancements, the coverage options, the forms needed to enroll, the evidence of insurability process, and also cover the new life benefits extra website.
For the plan enhancements the most significant plan enhancement is the guaranteed coverage opportunity, so during the initial enrollment period from October 15 through November 15 2013 employees will be eligible to PPO for or increase their optional life coverage by one level up to the guaranteed issue limit of $300,000 without evidence of insurability. Now this offer is available to current optional life participants and those enrolling for the first time.
Other plan enhancements include an improved child eligibility; children are now eligible from live birth until age 26. Also there’s an improved accelerated death benefit so that means a covered individual with a life expectancy of 12 months or less may now accelerate. Would receive in advance up to the full amount of his or her life insurance.
In addition new Life Suite services are now available. Employees and their families are automatically enrolled for the following services and no additional contributions are required. These include travel assistance, legal services, legacy planning services, and beneficiary financial counseling.
For travel assistance services Global Rescue provides travel assistance to all active US employees covered under the group life insurance program for their spouses and dependents. These services are available 24/7, 165 for emergency assistance, transport services, when traveling 100 or more miles away from home. There are also pre-trip resources available at lifebenefits.com/travel. All these services are included in the enrollment booklet on the RF website as well.
For legal services employees and their dependents have telephone access to a national network of 22,000 attorneys where they can call for a free 30 minute consultation and if they would like they can retain that attorney at a 25 percent discount. They can also visit the website where they have access to all host of legal documents and Q&A that they can access, which again the information is in the enrollment booklet that’s found on the RF website.
Legacy Planning Services is a website that employees and their dependents can access when dealing with the loss of a loved one where they can plan for funerals and their own legacy. Again that’s available at legacyplanningservices.com.
Now we’ll go over the coverage options for the RF plan, the Basic Term Life and AD&D Insurance is a $50,000 coverage option with $50,000 of matching basic AD&D. With Basic Life there’s no enrollment required and all the coverage is guaranteed. Employees also have access to additional coverage called Optional Term Life and AD&D Insurance. The coverage options available are electing one, two, three, four, five, six, or seven times annual earnings rounded to the next hire $1,000. The maximum coverage combined with basic life is $350,000. Again current participants have a one-time guaranteed coverage opportunity during initial enrollment to elect or increase by one level up to the $300,000 guarantee issue limit without evidence of insurability.
Employees also may elect additional coverage for their dependents. The spouse/domestic partner coverage available is $10,000, $20,000, $40,000, $60,000, $80,000, or $100,000 of coverage. The coverage may not exceed 100 percent of the employees combined basic and optional coverage amounts. For current participants UI or evidence of Insurability will be required when enrolling or increasing coverage amounts. Also note that an employee is not eligible to be insured as a spouse.
There is also child coverage available in increments of $2,000, $4,000, $6,000, $8,000, or $10,000 dollars. All child coverage is guaranteed without evidence of insurability and children that are unmarried are eligible from live birth until age 26. A child may only be covered by one parent. There is a new plan enhancement that if an employee’s first eligible child dies within 31 days of birth but prior to the employee enrolling in child life coverage a benefit of $2,000 will be paid.
When employees need to enroll for the Optional Term Life and AD&D Insurance they can use the RF benefits enrollment form found in the new enrollment booklet by Securian Life or found on the RF website.
When employees are enrolling their spouse/domestic partner or children in the Optional Dependent Term Life Insurance Coverage they may use the Securian Life Insurance form found in the enrollment booklet or found on the RF benefits website. When an employee or spouse/domestic partner is electing coverage beyond the guaranteed coverage amounts evidence of insurability will be required and this form is a Securian Life Form that is found in the enrollment booklet and also on the RF benefits website.
One of the most common questions that employees have is how the Evidence of Insurability or EOI process works. So I’m gonna talk a little bit about how this process works.
So when an applicant, so an employee or spouse/domestic partner sends in a completed EOI form to Securian Life first three things can happen. The first thing is that the coverage may be approved just based on the one page form. Otherwise coverage may not be approved. Either way Securian Life would send either a letter with the approval or denial. The last part would be that additional underwriting would be needed. In this case Securian Life would reach out to the applicant to complete and additional questionnaire to provide more information about their medical records. Or they may even ask the applicant to take a medical exam in which Securian Life would pay for.
The employee or domestic partner could take the medical exam at their home, at work, or their place of business and Securian Life would pay for that exam. Then Securian Life would have all the information they would need to make an underwriting decision and Securian Life would approve or deny the coverage and send the appropriate letter to the applicant with the decision.
The Life Benefits Extra website is for HR folks to securely access plan information, forms, and tools for the RF plan. Specifically being able to check underwriting status and build reports based on information available. RF will have the Life Benefits Extra Website available to each location. There is more information to come on this and there will be a demo held for everyone that is a user for this new website.
Thank you for your time in learning about the new plan with Securian Life. Thank you.
Tim Orcutt:Thanks very much David. So we’ve learned a lot about what Securian Life can offer us. One thing I want to clarify is that if you have the dependent life coverage you pay one premium and that covers all of your children no matter how many you have. Now let’s move on to what Sun Life is gonna be offering us. That’s our new disability carrier; they’re going to be covering the New York State short term disability which is the statutory or the required benefits.
The voluntary short term disability which you can sign up for and the long term disability for our fulltime employees. So they’re providing these additional disability insurance benefits to eligible employees in 2014. There’s gonna be an employee assistance plan that will give you up to five visits with a counselor at no charge. These are meant to help people who are going through very stressful or difficult situations.
There’s access to financial planners including a free initial in person visit and it also offers online will preparation. That’ll save you about $250. And then there is this really neat unusual benefit called a Retro Long Term Disability Benefit. As you know long term disability benefits usually don’t start until six months after a disability begins. So it doesn’t happen all that often but it does happen unfortunately.
What this will do is if you start your disability; being hospitalized for two or more weeks, and you remain disabled through the point at which the long term disability benefit starts they will pay you a lump sum benefit back to day one. So they will give you six months of benefit that normally wouldn’t even be part of the plan. They’ll pay that to you in a lump sum with no offset. So that’s a huge sum of money that somebody’s gonna need desperately if they’re in that situation.
That’s a great new benefit that we’re gonna be offering. So we’re gonna hear now from Shannon Vankirk at Sun Life who’s gonna walk us through who Sun Life is and what they’re gonna be providing to you.
Shannon Vankirk:Good morning. My name is Shannon Vankirk I’m a Senior Client Relationship Executive that works with the Research Foundation Human Resources Team and I work with Sun Life Financial. So wanted to talk to you today briefly about the new benefits that will be offered to you effective 1/1/14.