Chapter 19: COBRA
COBRA—the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1985—allows
employees to continue their participation in insurance programs offered by
the company during unpaid leaves of absence or after separation from the
company.
As a result, human resources professionals have three tasks to manage:
- They must inform employees of their rights under the COBRA
legislation.
- They must be able to initiate COBRA coverage for those employees
who take advantage of this provision.
- They need to track the monthly payments employees will make to
continue their continuing coverage.
This information is divided into the following sections:
- Generating a COBRA rights letter
- Initiating COBRA benefits
- Tracking a COBRA premium
- Tracking a COBRA payment
Generating a COBRA rights letter..........................................................................................
Use the COBRA Recipients Lists window to generate the letters you need to
notify employees of their COBRA rights. Any employee enrolled in a
medical benefit is eligible for COBRA benefits.
You’ll need to generate COBRA notices for employees who have enrolled in
medical benefits or who have made changes to their medical benefits
enrollment, such as moving from Single to Family coverage. For more
information about COBRA preferences, refer to Setting up benefit preferences
in Chapter 7, “Benefit Setup,” of the Human Resources Installation and
Setup manual.
