Domiciled business in OR w/ only CA ee's.

[Guest CandaceJennings]

I have an OR business considering the purchase of a CA company w/ 20 ee's currently insured w/ PacifiCare. Apparantly the CA law AB1672 will not allow a group to be written in CA if they are domiciled in another state... The business will be domiciled in OR - Human Resources, payroll, and taxes will run out of OR - PacifiCare states they can not continue to provide the benefit if no longer domiciled in OR and OR providers not wanting to write a group w/ no ee's in OR... Has anyone run into this and how have you written and with whom?

Thank you!

[KIP KRAUS]

I know that CA as well as NY have some weird group insurance laws, but many employers have employees in many states and they are able to have HMOs and PPOs written for their employees in these states. In fact CA will require your client to continue to provide STD benefits through the state fund in CA.

I would do a few things:

Contact the CA State Insurance Department

Contact Blue Cross Blue Shield of CA

Contact Kaiser Permanente of CA

Ask PacifiCare to issue the contract to the CA subsidiary.

[mroberts]

Kip has some good suggestions. There is definitely a way around whatever law you've recited since I have had several clients with locations in CA that have offered Pacificare or Kaiser. You should be able to write an HMO product on these employees.

Since you now have employees in at least 2 states, have you thought about getting a PPO? This way, you can administer one plan for all your employees. How many employees do you have in OR? If you have a couple hundred, creating a PPO and putting them under your plan would probably make the most sense since you have some leverage come renewal time.