State of California M E M O R A N D U M REFERENCE CODE: 2003-053 DATE: December 11, 2003 TO: Personnel Officers Personnel Transactions Supervisors Personnel Transactions Staff FROM: Department of Personnel Administration Benefits Division SUBJECT: Group Legal Services Insurance Plan - 2004 Annual Open Enrollment CONTACT: Sondra Cooper, Benefits Program Analyst (916) 324-9365, CALNET 454-9365 FAX: (916) 322-3769 Email: sondracooper@dpa.ca.gov The annual open enrollment for the State's Group Legal Services Insurance Plan is March 1 through April 30, 2004. The Benefits Administration Manual, Section 1500 has detailed information on processing enrollment forms for this program. During this enrollment period, eligible employees may enroll in the Plan and current enrollees can change their coverage from single to family/family to single, add/delete eligible dependents. Employees already enrolled in the Plan are not required to re-enroll each year in order to continue coverage. This memo provides information on plan eligibility criteria, effective dates of coverage, and instructions for ordering plan enrollment materials. CARRIER The plan administrator, ARAG Group, is a leader in its industry, providing high quality service and access to professional legal advice for State employees. To date, more than 26,000 State employees have enrolled in this program. To get additional information, please contact ARAG Group at (800) 247-4184, TDD (800) 383-4184 or via its Web site at: http://members.araggroup.com/california. PREMIUM RATES The monthly premium is $9.60 for individual coverage and $16.95 for family coverage (employee and one or more eligible dependents). Cancellation of coverage can occur at any time. Please discard any enrollment forms that contain old rates. The State Controller's Office (SCO) will not process enrollment forms that contain incorrect premium rates. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA Employees eligible to enroll in the State's Group Legal Services Insurance Plan during this open enrollment period include: 1. Permanent or probationary employees with a time base of half-time or more, who are represented by the following designations: - Managerial (M, E59, E79, E99) - Supervisory (S, E48, E58, E68, E78, E98) - Confidential (C, E97) - Excluded/Exempt (E88, E89) - E01 through E21, E67, E77; Permanent and probationary employees, with a time base of half- time or more in Bargaining Units 1-21; Permanent-Intermittent (PI) employees who are credited with a minimum of 480 paid hours each six month qualifying control period (January through June or July through December) or annually July through June (960 hours). A PI employee must receive credit for 480 paid hours in the current control period (December 31) or a total of 960 paid hours in two consecutive (prior and current) control periods (See BAM Sections 1502 and 1503 for details); and 4. Employees on Training and Development assignments or limited-term assignments with an appointment of six months or more are eligible to participate in the program only if their permanent civil service appointment has a time base of half-time or more. DEPENDENT ELIGIBILITY Eligible dependents are defined as: a lawful spouse; any unmarried, dependent child under the age of 23 who has never been married; children include natural, stepchildren, adopted children, and children for whom the employee is the legal guardian; and b.any economically dependent child, 23 years of age or over if he/she is incapable of self-support because of a physical or mental disability who has never been married and is chiefly dependent on the eligible employee for support and maintenance. Family members who are not eligible include the eligible employee's parents and grandparents, children under the age of 23 who are married, or who have been married, children over age 23, unless disabled as specified above or domestic partners. Employees are responsible for notifying the Human Resources/Personnel Office to complete the necessary paperwork when a child loses dependent eligibility. EFFECTIVE DATES OF COVERAGE The employee's effective date of coverage will begin on the first day of the pay period following the first premium (payroll) deduction. For example, for completed enrollment forms processed by the Personnel Office and forwarded to the State Controllers Office by March 10 (and there are no errors on the form), the first premium deduction will be in the March paycheck, and the effective date of coverage will be April 1. For enrollment forms received by SCO on or after March 11 through April 10, the effective date of coverage will be May 1. Any enrollment forms received by SCO on or after April 11 through April 30 will have an effective date of June 1. Timely processing is important. Late enrollments will not be approved for a retroactive effective date. Because this is a pre-paid plan a payroll deduction must appear on the employee's paycheck before coverage can begin. SCO will return any incorrectly completed forms to the Human Resources/Personnel Office for correction, which will delay the enrollment date. The date when the corrected form is returned to the SCO will determine the employee's effective enrollment date. EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS A variety of communications will be used to inform employees about the Group Legal Services Insurance Plan open enrollment. For example, an open enrollment packet will be mailed directly to the home address of approximately 190,000 eligible employees who are not currently enrolled in the plan. The packet contains a cover letter, an enrollment form, and a plan brochure. Employees will also be reminded of the open enrollment period through a global message on their paycheck stub for the March pay period (dated March 31, 2004). In addition, the March 2004 DPA Benefits News and the California WorksWell newsletter will feature the 2004 GLSIP Open Enrollment. Please distribute these publications to your employees. The Benefit News and California WorksWell can also be accessed via the DPA Web site at www.dpa.ca.gov. ORDERING ENROLLMENT KITS Departments should always maintain an adequate supply of marketing and enrollment materials in stock during open enrollment and for employees who become newly eligible to enroll during the year or for an employee who may wish to cancel plan coverage. DPA does not maintain these materials for distribution to departments. Please order supplies directly from the ARAG Group at 1-800-247-4184/TDD 800-383-4184 or e-mail your request to: service@araggroup.com or access via the Web site at http://members.araggroup.com/california. We appreciate your continued assistance in explaining the Group Legal Services Insurance Plan to your employees and processing the enrollment documents on a timely basis. Your assistance was instrumental in a highly successful open enrollment last year with more than 4,500 employees enrolling in the plan. If you have any questions regarding this memo, please call Sondra Cooper at (916) 324-9365, CALNET 454-9365, or e-mail sondracooper@dpa.ca.gov. Debbie Endsley, Acting Division Chief Benefits Division