COBRA Premiums: HSA Eligibility

What is COBRA insurance?

COBRA insurance is designed to give workers who take lost/quit a job or experienced a cutting in their working hours the power to pay premiums for and keep the grouping insurance plans that they would otherwise lose in these situations. COBRA, which stands for Consolidated Coach Upkeep Reconciliation Act of 1985, contained a series of amendments to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). In most cases, employees who feel major changes in their careers will receive a detect from their company's benefits administrator to inform them that their grouping health insurance coverage is catastrophe and they now have the choice to elect COBRA benefits if they and then desire (U.S. Department of Labor).

COBRA has a series of important stipulations that both concern owners and employees should be mindful of. First, COBRA is only offered to employees of companies that take 20 or more than workers, but certain states have laws on the books that require companies with 20 or less employees to offer healthcare coverage for a required menses of time. In full general, COBRA insurance coverage will last for 18 months later a worker loses group insurance benefits and elects COBRA, and in some cases this period can exist extended to 36 months (such as disability extensions), but these numbers are largely dictated past the qualifying event for COBRA ballot.

What are COBRA qualifying event notices?

Employees who experience these major changes in their careers will receive a notice from their company's benefits administrator called an "election notice" to inform them that their group health insurance coverage is ending and they at present have the option to elect COBRA benefits if they so want. While COBRA is well-nigh often associated with a change in job status, this insurance is also available as a response to qualifying life events, including via American Cancer Order:

  • Divorce
  • Loss of condition as a dependent
  • Death of a spouse
  • Employee meets Medicare eligibility historic period (age 65)
  • Employer files for Affiliate xi bankruptcy

Employees have 30 days subsequently these events to notify the group health plan administrator of this qualifying effect (60 days for divorce, legal separation or child's loss of dependent condition). At this bespeak, the employer has 14 days to outcome an election find that contains all the written information needed to understand COBRA rights and to determine whether to keep coverage. The employee or qualified dependents and so have 60 days to cull health insurance coverage under COBRA or opt for individual insurance through the state's healthcare marketplace.