COBRA Question

[Guest AJK0020]

In Jan a child of an employee became ineligible for coverage as a dependent due to age rules. At that time he was offered and accepted COBRA continuation. His premium payments were accepted for Jan, Feb, and Mar. During the month of March the HMO he was enrolled in called us to tell us that, because of the "live or work" rule, he will be terminated since he had moved outside their coverage area (this was discovered by a minor investigation of a claim).

My question is, do we have to offer any other coverage to him? We do have other plans that extend coverage to his new location that our employees can choose during open enrollment periods (July 1 each year).

Thans for any thoughts or direction.

[mroberts]

Since you have other plans that would cover this individual, yes you need to offer him the option of choosing one of the other plans. If, on the other hand, you only offered a local HMO, then this person would unfortunately lose coverage.