SPECIAL ENROLLMENT BENEFIT PLANS APRIL 21 - MAY 2, Your Benefits. Your Choice. Life Insurance Long-Term Care Legal Insurance

Transcription

1 SPECIAL ENROLLMENT BENEFIT PLANS APRIL 21 - MAY 2, 2014 Your Benefits. Your Choice. Life Insurance Long-Term Care Legal Insurance

2 A Message from Paul Bursic Dear Colleagues: We are pleased to announce a Special Enrollment Period for several benefit programs that Cornell provides for your consideration. Special Enrollments are occasionally offered by the insurance companies that underwrite voluntary benefit plans. Thus, it is very important to your personal financial planning efforts to take notice of what is being offered in this year s Special Enrollment. SPECIAL ENROLLMENT: APRIL 21 THROUGH MAY 2, EFFECTIVE DATE JULY 1, 2014 During this two week period, you can: Enroll in the Long-Term Care Insurance Plan by CNA or increase the present coverage for you and other family members. Enroll in or increase your Group Universal Life Insurance coverage through CIGNA. You can increase your spousal or domestic partner coverage, too, and coverage for children can be initiated or increased. Take advantage of a second chance this year to sign up for ARAG Legal Insurance. Sign up for Personal Accident Insurance, Pet Insurance, Home and Auto Insurance open to you at this time and any time throughout the year. Detailed descriptions of the offerings are available in this brochure, on the web and through vendor toll-free phone numbers to help you with questions. You can always contact us in our new location, the East Hill Office Building, Suite 102, with the same phone number ( ) and address (benefits@cornell.edu). Enroll through Workday Click on the menu icon to the left of the search box>all About Me>Benefits>External Links> Select a link to the insurance you d like to enroll in or change: Life Insurance Active, Long Term Care Insurance, Legal Plan Insurance. Have Questions? Call the customer service center at our vendors: Life Insurance: CIGNA at Long Term Care: CNA at Legal Plan Insurance: ARAG at These programs can be a great assist for you as you arrange insurance protection for your household. Cornell has greater purchasing power than you do as an individual in any of these insurance markets. We also negotiate premium rates and coverage types for you and provide convenient payroll deduction. Special Enrollments also provide you with an opportunity to purchase or increase coverage without having to answer health-related questions. This is an invaluable benefit to a substantial part of our group. I encourage you to set aside some time to review the insurance plans you have in place or have been considering. Now is a great time to act to protect your financial assets. Sincerely, Last Chance for Long-Term Care This may be the last Special Enrollment for Long-Term Care (LTC) insurance. You will still be able to buy LTC insurance, but it s only during this Special Enrollment that can you do so without answering medical questions. Paul Bursic Senior Director, Benefit Services If you already have an LTC policy through the Cornell offering, you can continue it and have the option of upgrading your coverage periodically in years to come to keep up with inflation. See page 4 for more information. 2

3 Life Insurance Overview During this Special Enrollment, CIGNA is offering current employee/participants a chance to add up to two times annual salary as a life insurance benefit without answering medical questions. The only limitation is a cap of the lesser of 10 times annual salary or $2 million in life insurance benefit under this plan. If you don t have Group Universal Life Insurance (GUL) at this time but decide to enroll, you can elect one or two times your annual salary as a life insurance policy amount effective July 1, 2014 without answering medical questions. Information about covering dependents is displayed below as well as contact and enrollment information. GUL features low group premiums and life insurance coverage for as long as you continue to pay premiums. You can drop coverage at any time to end the term protection. You can also decrease coverage at any time. If you want to join the plan or increase coverage outside of the Special Enrollment period, you must pass the medicalrelated questionnaire. GUL offers a cash accumulation fund (CAF) feature that you can elect to use for tax-favored savings. To use the CAF, you arrange with CIGNA to have more than the cost of the premium for your term life insurance coverage deducted from your pay. The excess over the required premium goes into your CAF and begins to earn competitive interest rates. Interest credited to your CAF is not taxable income to you until you withdraw the interest as cash from the policy. This is a savings plan that is unique to the insurance product line that you may find compelling. Group Universal Life (GUL): Offers flexible life insurance coverage for you, your spouse/domestic partner and your dependent children Allows you to carry very large amounts of coverage when you are young and could use insurance assets to cover your lifecycle needs (when you are young you usually have more obligations than assets, and when you are older you should have more assets than obligations) Provides the option to accumulate cash value and earn tax-deferred interest with the Cash Accumulation Fund Provides the opportunity to continue your coverage (at higher group rates) if you leave Cornell University for any reason (new job or retirement), as long as the group plan is in force. Because circumstances change over time, faculty and staff can increase or decrease their coverage amounts at any time by contacting CIGNA. Normally, however, if you wish to purchase more life insurance after your first 60 days of employment, you have to submit answers to medicalrelated questions and wait for the insurance company to assess your responses. During this Special Enrollment period, you may elect additional coverage equal to two times your base annual salary, for a total coverage not to exceed ten times your base annual salary or $2,000,000, whichever is less, without needing to have a medical examination. Family members and dependents also may take advantage of the Special Enrollment period (see box on page 4). You can check the amount of life insurance you already have by visiting Workday. Please refer to the section on Enrolling for Coverage/Questions below. If you elect coverage during this Special Enrollment period, you can obtain guaranteed amounts of GUL coverage. The effective date of the new elected coverage amount will be July 1, Enrolling for Coverage/Questions You can enroll or increase your GUL coverage by going to Workday. Click on the menu icon to the left of the search box>all About Me>Benefits>External Links> Life Insuranceactive. Once in CIGNA Trusted Advisor, click on My Account to review current coverage and beneficiary designations. 3 To enroll and designate beneficiaries for the first time or increase your current coverage, click on Enroll Now. Your Benefits. Your Choice.

4 Complete the enrollment process. Sign enrollment elections electronically and print out your confirmation. To update beneficiary designations on your current coverage, click on My Account. Click on Beneficiary Information. Check the agreement box of the legal notice and click Continue to My Beneficiary Designation. Click Edit and add, delete or edit your beneficiaries. Click Group Universal LIfe Coverages If you enroll for GUL coverage by May 2, 2014, you can elect the following amounts of coverage for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and dependent children without answering medical questions: For the Employee: Existing GUL participants: If you re currently enrolled in the GUL plan, you can elect an additional coverage amount of up to two times your base annual salary, not to exceed plan maximum. Employee plan maximum is ten times salary or $2,000,000, whichever is less. New GUL participants: You can elect up to two times your base annual salary. Any amount elected above two times salary is subject to evidence of insurability by answering a series of medical questions. Employee plan maximum is ten times salary or $2,000,000, whichever is less. For the Spouse/ Domestic partner: Existing GUL participants: If your spouse/domestic partner is currently enrolled, you can increase coverage by one, two or three benefit levels of $10,000 (total of $30,000) as guaranteed issue, not to exceed the plan maximum. Spouse/domestic partner plan maximum is $250,000. New GUL participants You can elect coverage of $30,000 as guaranteed issue. Any amount elected above $30,000 is subject to evidence of insurability. Spouse/domestic partner plan maximum is $250,000. For Dependent Children: Continue when you are done. CIGNA will send enrollment packets to you with additional information. If you have any questions, please call the CIGNA Customer Service Center at Knowledgeable service representatives are available to answer all your questions, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Eastern Time. Last Chance: Long Term Care Insurance Overview Financial planners strongly recommend Long Term Care (LTC) insurance as an important component of their client s personal risk management strategy. What is the risk? The risk is that you may need care to meet your personal needs of daily living. You may need personal assistance to complete normal tasks such as mobility, dressing, feeding, bathing, etc. LTC is specifically designed to help pay for this type of custodial care, whether delivered in the home or in a long term care facility. The need for rehabilitative or nursing home care is not age-specific. People of all ages can become incapacitated through accidental injury or through gradual degenerative states of mind or body. Disability insurance replaces a portion of lost income and health insurance helps pay for medically necessary treatment, but neither will help pay for custodial care. Current Plan Participants Coinciding with the Special Enrollment, current participants in the Long Term Care plan have a special opportunity to increase Long Term Care coverage without being subject to evidence of insurability. Cornell worked closely with CNA to provide this opportunity. CNA is Existing GUL participants: If your dependent child or children are currently enrolled, you can increase their coverage up to $20,000. New GUL participants: You can elect coverage in $2,000 increments, up to $20,000. 4

5 length of time that the amount you purchase will last: Plan A (three years), Plan B (five years), Plan C (ten years). By looking at the coverage levels and the cost of Long Term Care at each level, you can determine which plan best fits your needs. How much does LTC Insurance cost? sending an offer to current Long Term Care participants giving them the opportunity to maintain their current protection by paying an adjusted premium so their coverage keeps up with the rising cost of care and is less likely to be eroded by inflation. CNA s letter will be unique to each member depending on their current coverage level. Current members do not have to take CNA up on the offer but they do need to be aware that future opportunities to increase coverage may be subject to answering medical questions. Call CNA at if you have questions regarding the mailing. What is the average cost of nursing home care? According to the New York State Partnership for Long Term Care website ( the average cost for care in the Central Region of NY (including Tompkins County) is $284 per day. At that rate a one year stay in a nursing home could cost $103,740. How does LTC insurance work? Please visit Workday. Click on the menu icon to the left of the search button>all About Me>Benefits>External Links>Long Term Care Insurance for full details on the LTC plans and options that are offered to Cornell employees. On the site you can view the various daily benefit options that are available, as well as the different lifetime maximums that are available for each daily option. Information about other features in the plan is available so you can determine if this LTC coverage fits your needs. When you get there, you will see that you have a choice of six options in terms of the levels of reimbursement for costs that will be covered ($100/day, $150/day, $200/ day, $250/day, $300/day, $350/day for daily living) and a 5 The cost for this insurance is based on your age when your coverage begins, so the younger you are, the lower your premiums will be. This means that as you grow older, if you make no changes to your plan in the future, your premium will stay based on your original age at entry into the plan. Coverage is portable so if you leave employment with Cornell, you can keep your coverage and your premium will remain the same. Why will this most likely be the last time CNA offers a Special Enrollment Period for LTC? The LTC market is rapidly changing as the baby boomer generation ages into retirement. Nationally, around 10,000 people currently celebrate their 65th birthday every day! (Pew Research Center) Most of those with LTC coverage are elderly people who cannot properly care for their personal hygienic, or mobility or nutritional needs. Insurance companies are increasingly concerned about the magnitude of the risk they have assumed during the coming 20+ years. So, they have tightened their underwriting standards for new enrollees. This means that only healthier applicants will be able to enroll. You can still buy LTC insurance in the future, but only during the Cornell Special Enrollment will employees be able to enroll without answering health questions. We encourage you to make a decision about LTC during the Special Enrollment period. If you already have an LTC policy through the Cornell offering, you will be able to continue it and have the option of upgrading your coverage periodically in years to come. Are the LTC premiums taken on a pre-tax basis? Unfortunately, Congress has not passed this measure into law, despite repeated efforts to do so in many health insurance related bills that they have considered in previous years. There are some provisions in both federal and state income tax rules that favor the purchase of LTC plan. Please consult your tax advisor for more details. Your Benefits. Your Choice.

6 Why should I enroll in LTC insurance now? From April 21 through May 2, 2014 for the first time in more than five years you can enroll without providing evidence of insurability, meaning there are no healthrelated questions to answer. If you decide to apply later, you ll need to answer the health questions, and you may not be approved. Coverage is effective July 1, Are my other family members eligible? Even if you don t enroll, this coverage is available to your spouse or domestic partner, as well as your parents and grandparents or your spouse s or domestic partner s parents and grandparents. They can apply at any time; however they will be required to provide evidence of insurability. Coverage is not guaranteed. Where can I go with questions? How do I enroll? For more information, visit Workday. Click on the menu icon to the left of the search button>all About Me>Benefits>External Links>Long Term Care Insurance. For spouse/domestic partners other family members who wish to apply, they need to go directly to the CNA website at and enter password: cornellltc. If you have additional questions, contact CNA s customer service at Legal Insurance Overview You have the opportunity to enroll in group benefits designed to help protect you and your family from many of today s legal and financial issues. It s the ARAG Legal Plan, an exclusive benefit available only to Cornell employees. For only $11.63 per pay period (semi-monthly) or $10.73 per pay period (bi-weekly) the Legal Plan offers you and your family added protection from today s legal matters including preparing a will, gaining a power of attorney, and resolving contractor disputes. Most importantly, when you choose to work with a network attorney, most covered legal matters are 100% paid in full. Some of the covered services include: Consumer Protection: warrantee issues, telemarketing scams, insurance disputes and contractor problems Financial Protection: for debt collection matters, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and veterans benefits Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning: including an Education Center and the ability to create your own legally valid documents through DIY Docs. ARAG Legal Plan members have the convenience of accessing legal services online, over the phone or in an attorney s office. In addition to the great legal protection, you ll receive enhanced services including Identity Theft Services, Financial Wellness Hotline and Immigration Assistance. The Special Enrollment runs April 21-May 2 for coverage effective July 1, To enroll, visit Workday. Click on the menu icon to the left of the search button>all About Me>Benefits>External Links>Legal Plan Insurance. For additional questions, contact Mercer Voluntary Benefits at Auto/Home Insurance Overview During the Special Enrollment, this is also a good time to review the Auto and Home Insurance Program through Mercer Voluntary Benefits. If you are thinking about changing your insurer for your home or auto insurance, call Mercer at and receive free no obligation quotes from MetLife, Travelers, and Liberty Mutual Insurance. You can also obtain coverage and quotes for condo, renters, boat, personal excess liability, motorcycle, motor home, seasonal property, rental property and personal articles. You don t have to wait until your current policies expire to change your coverage. 6

7 Pet Insurance Overview Our vendor for auto and home insurance, Mercer Voluntary Benefits, also offers pet insurance through Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI ). You may enroll at any time. VPI has comprehensive plans designed to protect you financially when the unexpected occurs. Affordable coverage from VPI allows you to focus on providing optimal health care for your pet rather than worrying about the cost of treatment. You can be reimbursed for veterinary expenses such as surgeries, diagnostic tests, hospitalization, prescriptions, vaccinations and more. VPI pet insurance covers: Medical treatments and surgeries for minor problems such as ear infections and bite wounds Major problems like broken bones, diabetes and cancer Part of the cost for vaccinations, teeth cleaning, and routine annual visits, if you choose additional coverage VPI pet insurance does not cover: Elective procedures Food and grooming Behavioral problems Congenital or hereditary defects Pre-existing conditions that are not resolved Available Plans Major Medical Plan Comprehensive This plan is made for dog- and cat-owning employees who want the very best pet insurance plan VPI offers. Medical Plan Economical Just want basic coverage for your dog or cat? This plan is great for budget-conscious employees. Injury Plan Emergency Covers accidents only. Feline Select Plan Just for Cats The Feline Select plan offers low-cost coverage for the 15 most common cat conditions. Plan Type Dog Cat Major Medical Plan $26 36/mo* $16 23/mo* Medical Plan $20 28/mo* $13 18/mo* Injury Plan $12/mo* $12/mo* *Sample monthly rates. Your rates will be calculated and deducted on a Per Pay Period basis. The above premiums vary based on the age of the pet, species, size (as an adult), plan type, deductible and state of residence. 7 How does the plan work? VPI pet insurance covers dogs, cats, birds, and exotic pets such as birds, rabbits, and reptiles. There is no network and you take your pet to the vet of your choice. You pay your vet s bill in full and have your vet provide you with a diagnosis, treatment date(s) and itemized invoice(s) for processing. You send these to VPI insurance and VPI will reimburse you directly. How do I enroll? Visit Workday to enroll. Click on the menu icon to the left of the search button >All About Me>Benefits>External Links>Auto/Home/Pet Insurance. If you have additional question, you can call PETS-VPI. When you get a quote for pet insurance, you sign up each animal you own separately. Select a level of benefit (Major Medical Plan, Medical Plan, Injury Plan, or Feline Select Plan), which identifies how much reimbursement is allotted to each kind of diagnosis. Your premiums are based on that coverage level, the kind of pet you own, and the age of each pet. A yearly discount applies to your total premium costs for multiple pets. You will also receive a 5% discount for participating in a group insurance plan, which is one of the advantages of securing insurance through a plan offered through Cornell s vendors rather than on your own. Where can I go with questions? For more information, visit Workday. Click on the menu icon to the left of the search button >All About Me>Benefits>External Links>Auto/Home/Pet Insurance. Your Benefits. Your Choice.

8 Presorted First-Class Mail U.S. Postage PAID Benefit Services 395 Pine Tree Road Ithaca, NY Cornell University Diversity and Inclusion are a part of Cornell University s heritage. We re a recognized employer and educator valuing AA/EEO, Protected Veterans, and Individuals with Disabilities. Produced by the Division of Human Resources at Cornell University Division of Human Resources Benefit Services 395 Pine Tree Road Ithaca, NY (607) Web: benefits@cornell.edu 03/14 14M