Basic Life:

• Is an employer-paid life insurance plan.
• Typically only offers one level of coverage.
• As it is employer-paid, the cost will show as $0.00. This is also why the employee will not usually see an option to waive this benefit, since it is free to them.
• It will have a coverage drop-down menu, though typically there will only be one option in the menu to select.

Tiered benefits are ones that allow the employee to elect not only for themselves but also for family members. Tiered benefits have different rates depending on who is being covered. Medical, Dental, and Vision are the most common tiered benefits.

Tiered benefit types:

• May have more than one available plan, depending on the benefits your group has available.
• Have checkboxes for each eligible family member. The “Your Cost” box will automatically update, depending on who is being enrolled.
• May also have the option for the cost to be deducted from the employee’s payroll either pre- or post-tax.
• Have the option to be waived entirely.

If an employee chooses to decline coverage in their Medical benefit for any family member, including themselves, by either not selecting the checkbox next to that person’s name or waiving enrollment in the benefit entirely, they will then be directed to the Medical Declination page.

On this page, the employee must give a reason for declining the Medical benefit for that family member, by selecting an option from the drop-down menu.

Note that choosing ‘Other’ in the drop-down will prompt the employee to type their declination reason.

The Disability benefit type includes Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, or the combined Educator Disability. 

With these types of benefits, the employee can typically choose from a selection of coverage amounts. These are chosen from the drop-down menu next to their chosen waiting period.

These plans allow employees to elect additional life insurance beyond the Basic Life plan.

• Employees can select their chosen coverage amount from the drop-down menu next to the chosen plan.
• Below the coverage drop-down menu, employees can see their Guarantee Issue amount. If the employee selects a coverage amount over that amount, they would then have to provide Evidence of Insurability later in their walkthrough.

Employees can also typically elect into life insurance for their dependents. These may be split into separate Spouse Life and Child(ren) Life plans or may be combined as a Dependent Life plan.

As with the Employee Life plans, employees can elect the coverage amount of their choice from the drop-down menu and see the Guarantee Issue amount below it.

Premium Only elections, such as FSAs, HSAs, and Dependent Care allow the employee to enter a monthly contribution based on the allowed range, which is set up during implementation. The allowed range is shown below the Monthly Contribution box.

With this allowed range in place, you don’t have to worry about auditing after enrollment because you know that the employees only entered allowed amounts during this plan year.