COBRA Articles
Spring Into Action - Eliminate COBRA Administration Chaos
Rather than letting confusion reign, take this opportunity to create clarity. Define your role as a broker – make it clear that you're not a COBRA administrator and use the following simple strategies to eliminate COBRA chaos.
Update your Communication Process.
If you're a broker, communicate with employers about COBRA at least three times a year. Contact clients 90 days prior to their plans' pre-expiration date, before open enrollment, and after the first of the year.
90 Days Before Renewal: Pre-renewal communication presents an opportunity for you to ask consultative questions about your clients' plans and how COBRA requirements are being managed by each company. It affords you time to help determine the best go-forward COBRA administration strategy and to help make sure they take care of the risks at renewal.
Open Enrollment: It's a critical point of contact for brokers because health plans and COBRA administration go hand-in-hand. COBRA plans are often affiliated with the employer's health plan carriers, and sometimes when people change carriers they forget to check on COBRA to see how carrier decisions impact COBRA administration.
First of the Year: After the start of the year is when most employer health plans go into effect. It's also when a lot of employers who didn't plan at open enrollment discover they made mistakes and failed to come up with a plan for COBRA administration. As a COBRA administrator, I always get a lot of calls from employers in January who need our services right away because they didn't realize their change in health insurance carriers left them without a COBRA administration program.
For employers, COBRA compliance is critical. Business owners put themselves at risk when they don't have clear COBRA administration plans in place. This situation puts you, the broker, at risk too.
To protect yourself, always present clients with a waiver of liability. The waiver states that you've informed the employer about the risk of oversights when self-administering COBRA or not having a good automated COBRA administration plan in place, and that after receiving the information, the client declined to use a COBRA administrator. By presenting the waiver of liability for the client to sign, you protect yourself and put the group on notice that you're not managing COBRA for them. The client realizes that self-administering COBRA is an important decision and a challenging proposition. The act of signing a waiver of liability makes people think twice about their decisions.
By establishing year-round communication and introducing a waiver of liability, you delineate your role in COBRA administration. And when you create clarity, you attract and retain more clients, outperform your competition, and secure client loyalty this season and beyond. ts get caught unprepared. By addressing common COBRA misconceptions now, you'll provide real value, earning client trust and building renewals.
About COBRAGuard Inc. COBRAGuard Inc. is a certified COBRA administrator (CCA), helping employers control risks and liabilities, prevent adverse claims, and save time and money. The company serves more than 3,000 organizations nationwide and it stands behind its services with a 100 percent compliance guarantee. For more information, visit the company's website at www.cobraguard.net.
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