COBRA and LOA

[Guest bakyspritz]

I'm still relatively new to COBRA. I have an employee who already missed 1/2 month of insurance deduction in October and come to find out that he is off on medical LOA. He won't be back until mid November but only as a part-time employee where he is not eligible for insurance.

1. Do I send him a COBRA letter based on his LOA date or when he becomes PT when he comes back?

2. This company normally keeps people who are gone for FMLA on the normal insurance and hope they come back and play catch up on their portion of the insurance. Is this the correct way of doing this or do you send people to COBRA for LOA too since they are not contributing anything while they ar gone. Is LOA considered a qualifying event?

Thanks for answering my questions.

[leevena]

If your employee was enrolled in your plan, then you must offer COBRA. Your question stated that you collected part of the premium, but does not state if the ee was enrolled.

[GMK]

Basically, COBRA continuation coverage becomes available when the employee loses coverage due to a qualifying event, like reduction in hours. I don't find that failing to pay a medical plan premium would be a COBRA qualifying event.

Medical LOA under FMLA is not a COBRA qualifying event. Coverage continues under FMLA as if the person were at work as long as the employee continues to pay her/his share, if any, of the premiums. Coverage under FMLA is not COBRA coverage, but failure to return to work after the FMLA leave is a COBRA qualifying event (termination).

One feature of FMLA is that the employee is returned to pre-leave conditions after the FMLA leave. For this reason, employers may continue to pay the insurance premiums, so the employee is assured of her/his pre-FMLA coverage when the employee returns to work. If the employee does not return to work after the FMLA leave, the employer can try to get a reimbursement from the employee for the premiums the employer paid during the leave.

This is a link to a useful COBRA brochure:

http://www.hi4.com/downloads/cobra99.pdf

[leevena]

GMK, thanks for the reply. I did not read the question very closely. I never saw the second reference to Family, only the first paragraph about a LOA.