COBRA Fully Insured to Self Funded New York

[Guest RxGuy]

New York State has extended COBRA benefits to 36 months. This extension applys to fully insured plans. I have a client that has elected to go self funded and thereby go back to the federal COBRA of 18 months. The client currently has COBRA participants that are covered under the 36 month extension under thier old fully insured plan.

What are the notification requirments for these members? Can the client grandfather the effected COBRA participants for one more month? Any assitance on this would be great

[Chaz]

I am not familiar with NY's law in detail but I think that, to get around the ERISA preemption issue, the law probably regulates insurers not employers. Therefore, I think that it is the insurer's obligation to comply with the NY law, not the employer's. (The employer still has to comply with COBRA, of course.)