Saray is the Head of Human Resources at Connecteam, where she leads a team of HR specialists. She has a diverse background in recruiting and HR management and deeply understands the unique challenges presented to high-growth companies. Saray has strong managerial and business leadership skills, making her a relentless force in solving company issues. Saray holds a BA in Behavioral Sciences.
Saray is the Head of Human Resources at Connecteam, where she leads a team of HR specialists. She has a diverse background in recruiting and HR management and deeply understands the unique challenges presented to high-growth companies. Saray has strong managerial and business leadership skills, making her a relentless force in solving company issues. Saray holds a BA in Behavioral Sciences.
Many US workers have access to benefits. In the private sector, 77% of employees can take sick leave, 71% have health benefits, and 40% have dental care. In addition to these major benefits, some companies also offer wellness programs, paternity leave, daycare, and other perks.
Administering these programs requires paperwork, including benefit enrollment forms, which we will explain below. While a specific type of benefit enrollment form may not be required by law, you must gather information about benefit participation and employees for tax purposes and to stay compliant with your insurers and any third-party benefit providers.
Benefit enrollment forms can be an excellent way to do this. They help you gather information on one form and ensure the information is gathered in a compliant way. Some insurers even require benefit enrollment forms.
To take advantage of workplace benefits, workers need to share some personal details. This usually comes in the form of a benefit enrollment form, a document that captures information used to administer benefits. These forms are usually needed at three specific times.
During each of these periods, workers may need to fill out a benefit enrollment form, which can be a paper document or can be completed online, depending on the system your organization uses.
If an employee’s status changes because they move, get married, have or adopt a baby, or otherwise go through a life event that could impact their benefits, the information on their form will also need to be updated to stay in compliance.
Paperwork is necessary for many parts of HR and administration work, and benefits are no different. Benefit enrollment forms can help your organization do the following.
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Your organization can use benefit enrollment form templates or create your own forms.
If you create your own, make sure to speak to your provider of group benefits to find out what information they need from your employees so that you can gather everything that’s required. Then, have the final form, especially the authorization to disclose personal health information, reviewed by legal counsel.
Many benefit enrollment forms will include the following sections and information.
The employee’s name, contact information, social security number, marital status, race, and date of birth are all important for insurers, who use this information to accurately identify them and price healthcare quotes.
Is the employee filling out the form after a qualifying life event or during open enrollment? You will need this information to stay compliant. For example, if your worker is changing their plan outside of the open enrollment period, you need to be able to show they qualify to do so because they have adopted a child or have had another qualifying event.
This part of the form states that insurance carriers and any other providers of benefits do not discriminate against workers based on their religion, race, gender, national origin, age, or any other characteristic protected by civil rights laws.
When an employee’s phone number, contact information, marital status, or other information has changed, you will need to update this information for insurance and tax purposes. Adding a question about this on the form can also remind employees to update their information during routine benefits updates, such as open enrollment.
This part of the benefit enrollment form asks workers to give insurance providers the authority to access their health records to assess claims and for other lawful purposes.
For insurance policies or benefits that pay upon death, you may need to ask for the contact information of beneficiaries. If some group benefits, such as health insurance, include spouses and children, you may need details about these individuals, including their names, dates of birth, and other policies they already have in place.
Your workers need to disclose what other benefits they have, especially when it comes to healthcare coverage. If they fail to do so, future claims may be denied.
Insurers need to know about other coverage because if a worker has more than one policy in place, healthcare insurance providers need to establish amongst themselves who is the primary insurance provider and who is the secondary insurance provider.
In the event of a claim, the primary provider pays the claim. If there is an additional amount not covered by the primary insurance coverage, the secondary insurance provider pays the additional costs, up to the insurance policy limit.
The signature line should state that by signing, your worker is verifying that everything in the form is complete and accurate. By signing, they are also agreeing that they have read and understood all parts of the form.
These forms do not contain information about the benefit costs that employees and employers share, as these details are subject to change, or personal benefit information, such as the details of your employees’ health plans.
If you are having your team members fill out benefit enrollment forms, you may want to use these best practices.
Benefit enrollment forms help you get workplace perks to workers, create a great benefits package, and stay compliant. You have plenty of options, including paper or electronic forms, and templates or custom-made forms. No matter which you choose, offering plenty of support for workers will help ensure you get the information you need.
