Mid-Year Change Due to Termination of QMCSO

[Chaz]

Employee gets divorced while working for a company. At that time an order is entered stating that employee must pay child support and enroll dependent child in employee's health plan, which presumably the employee does at the company.

Employee leaves employment and goes to work for another employer and enrolls (through cafeteria plan) employee's child in plan as a part of initial enrollment.

Sometime later, employee gets revised order stating that dependent original order is vacated (because the child is emancipated), therefore, employee does not have to pay support or carry dependent on health plan. Dependent is has been added to former spouse's plan although the revised order does not require it (it is silent on issue). Not sure how child was added but assume that the child was added in an open enrollment period held in late 2008 for the 2009 plan year.

Can employee change employee's cafeteria plan election to remove dependent's coverage mid-year?

Thanks for any thoughts.

[Chaz]

Does anyone have any thoughts.

[masteff]

Unless I misunderstand the process of emancipation, the child becoming emancipated would likely be a loss of eligibility and therefore a reason to drop the dependent.

But... are you still w/in the time window to allow a change (your post is vague on how long it's been since the termination of the order)?

[Chaz]

The order only removes the obligation from the employer to cover the child under the employee's plan. Under the terms of the second employer's plan, the child is still eligible for coverage so I am not sure if there is any exception under the cafeteria plan rules for the child to be removed except (possibly) under the QMCSO exception.