Cal-Cobra Notice

[Guest bth1]

Under Cal. H&S Code 1366.29, employers must provide notice to employees of their option to receive Cal-Cobra coverage for up 36 mos. following a qualifying event, should COBRA coverage end earlier. The statute indicates that the notice should be incorporated into the federally-mandated notice of pending termination of COBRA coverage. Yet, my understanding is that COBRA does not require such notice to be given. Has anyone dealt with the Cal-COBRA notice and, if so, which notice did you tack it onto -- Notice of right to elect COBRA coverage?

Thanks --

[Sandra Pearce]

There is no federal requirement regarding notice of pending termination of COBRA coverage. There may be a California state law requiring such a notice.

[Mary C]

I asked a question about this law a few threads down and have since found the text of the regulations. While the Federal regs do not require a notification that the COBRA period is expiring, we do notify COBRA participants within 3-6 months before the end of their COBRA period and tell them to contact the carrier for possible conversion - a lot of states require this. To this letter we added the notification language for participants in the state of California who were over age 60 and had worked for the employer for 5 years to contact the carrier for possible eligiblity to continue COBRA longer. (This regulation was passed a few years back). We plan to amend this language to become more broader and direct any California participant to the carrier for possibility of continuing coverage longer.