Benefits 101

An employee wishes to put his spouse onto the plan because the spouse lost health insurance on June 1, 11. They just made this request today....3.5 months later. It seems to late to add the dependent who lost coverage thru their employer, but in reading the regs, I do not see a "statute of limitations" anywhere in there. I imagine there must be one. Can anyone comment on this?

A life / disability insurance company did not provide notice of premium increase. In PA, what statute governs the rules concerning notices of premium change / cancellation for life / disability policies. Basically I want to know if a 30 day or 60 day notice is required. Thank you in advance

Company X changed health insurance carriers on 1/1/11. They did not send in a termination notice until 2/15/11...so from 1/1 to 2/15 they had 2 insurance companies. Old insurance A, and new insurance B. The old insurance termination date that was requested was 1/1/11. However, insurance company A terminated the insurance on 3/1/11 saying the termination letter was not sent in a timely manner. Some employees used the old insurance cards claims were made with insurance A. Insurance B is willing to pay these claims...but the claims have been marked as paid. Insurance A will NOT subrogate the claims. So, Company X is left in collections for 2 months of unpaid premiums to Insurance A. Anything they can do? State of PA.

Thanks for the reply...that might be good news. I wasn't 100% sure if the leased employees could remain on the leasing company's benefit plans. So they can stay on the leasing company's benefit plans....BUT, for testing purposes, must be tested under the recipient company's plan documents. Correct? Any risk to this arrangement. I figure the 100% safe thing would be for company XYZCP to get its own insurance, 403b, etc...but of course, this is a hassle. P.S. XYZCP does NOT have any employees other than the ones that it leases.

Thanks, that answers my question. So if payment for the coverage month of March (Mar 1 - Mar 31) is due on the first of the month (i.e. Mar 1)....then payment must be received by Mar. 31. Also, the payment can be postmarked Mar. 31 and that qualifies as "timely payment".

Upon electing COBRA and after sending in the first payment....is there a mandatory required grace period? For example, in the COBRA notice, there is usually a line "your premiums are due on the first of the month. The is no grace period". Is "no grace period" allowed? For instance, premiums are due on March 1st. It is March 2nd. We term the employee since we have not received COBRA premiums. We then get the check on the 3rd (i.e. it was in the mail). Employee is NOT allowed back on the plan. This is OK, right?

IRC §414(n)(3)© In other words, a leased employee must be treated as an employee of the recipient for purposes of a cafeteria plan, a group term life insurance plan, or the other plans listed above Am I misreading the statute? P.S. yes, they are employees leased from XYZ to XYZCP. They receive paychecks from XYZ. They meet the definition of "leased employee".

Same situation as this fine article: http://benefitslink.com/modperl/qa.cgi?db=...esign&id=11 However, the "spin off company" is a 501©3. Can they co-sponsor the 401K or the controlling organization? This isn't my area of expertise, so pardon if this is a stupid question.

PA company. Company XYZ has 100 employees. 3 are leased to a non-profit XYZ community programs (XYZCP). XYZCP has its own board and is a 501c3. Company XYZ is a for profit with over 100 owners. Currently, the 3 leased employees are under all the benefits plans of company XYZ, NOT XYZCP. How should we proceed? I've done a bit of research, which I'm 95% confident of. But I wanted some other opinions to check myself.

Hi, I'm not a North Carolina guy but a client has another small business in North Carolina (zip code 27332) that they want me to shop around. What carriers compete in the N.C. market? BCBS, Aetna, UHC, Coventry, Cigna any others? Any locals to NC have insight into the carriers...for example "Cigna has a horrible network".