Limiting age for dependents

[Guest Tucker]

Our company is considering changing our plan provisions to terminate

all dependents upon reaching age 19 regardless of full time student status

or disability. We are a self-funded plan subject to ERISA. Are there any

issues with this? We would of course offer them COBRA upon attainment

of their limiting age.

[papogi]

You're certainly able to impose this limitation. The issue is that very, very few companies would have such a stringent dependent eligibility provision, and in your battle to hire and keep good employees, you could very well lose to the competition over something such as this. To an employee, this is a huge disadvantage to his/her dependent in college, and may be enough to make that person look for work elsewhere. College kids are not typically big risks. They are young and healthy, their parents are no longer having kids (no premature babies to pay for), and their parents are not very old, yet. All in all, these are employees to keep.