EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

Home

ENROLLING & MAKING CHANGES

Find out when and how you may enroll and make changes to your benefit elections.

ELIGIBILITY

As a regular employee (full-time or part-time, working a minimum of 20 hours per week), you are eligible to participate in the medical, dental and vision care plans and other available benefit programs. Eligible dependents include your spouse as well as your dependent children and stepchildren under the age of 26 who are not active military. Benefits are available to an employee's domestic partner to further demonstrate SwRI's commitment to the Core Value of "People: Fostering an employee-centric culture in a safe, inclusive, healthy, and supportive workplace." Further information is available here.

BENEFITS OVERVIEW

You may enroll during orientation or by visiting the Employee Benefits Office within a week of your hire date. Annually, you may elect changes to your benefits selections. Generally, benefit elections are revised only during the annual open enrollment period, usually in November, and changes become effective on January 1 of the following calendar year. Other than during open enrollment, you may make changes only when a qualifying event occurs, or you experience a qualifying family status change.

Medical, Dental, Vision, Voluntary AD&D and other pre-tax benefit plans must be changed within 31 days of a qualifying event. Qualifying events include:

Those Related to the Employee:

  • Marriage or divorce of employee
  • Submission of a Declaration of Domestic Partnership
  • Employee being called to active Military Service, or vice versa, for a period in excess of 30 days
  • Moving out of the service area of a health care plan in connection with a change in the employee's worksite
  • Switching from regular status to leave of absence status, or vice versa, for a period in excess of 14 days
  • Switching from regular status to temporary status or vice versa by the employee
  • Qualification for or loss of Medicare or Medicaid coverage by the employee
  • Termination of an employee’s domestic partnership

Those Related to the Employee’s Dependents:

  • Birth or adoption of a dependent child under age 26
  • Death of employee’s spouse, domestic partner, or dependent child under age 26
  • The ineligibility of a dependent child due to attainment of age 26
  • The ineligibility of a dependent child under age 26 due to enlistment in active military service
  • Commencement or termination of employment of employee’s spouse or dependent child under age 26
  • Adding or dropping health care benefits by employee’s spouse or dependent child under age 26 through an open enrollment or due to a change in employment status of the employee’s spouse or dependent child
  • Addition or termination of health care benefits by the employer of the employee’s spouse or dependent child under age 26
  • A significant change in health care cost or coverage of the health care plan through the employer of the employee’s spouse or dependent child under age 26
  • Qualification for or loss of Medicare or Medicaid coverage by the employee’s spouse or dependent child under age 26
  • Marriage or divorce of the employee’s dependent child under age 26
  • Addition or termination of enrollment of health care benefits offered by the educational institution of the employee's spouse, domestic partner, or dependent child or dependent child under age 26

OPEN ENROLLMENT

During the open enrollment period, you will have an opportunity to review your optional employee benefit program elections and add or delete programs or change your participating family members in a program, as needed. Most of the programs that permit annual changes are covered by the Section 125 plan. A new election must be made for contributions to health care or dependent care flexible spending account for each new calendar year. To elect setting aside pre-tax dollars for eligible health care and dependent care, an amount for the plan year must be entered on the applicable form.

Additionally, the open enrollment process provides you an opportunity to review your beneficiary designations and your dependent information and make appropriate changes.

A change due to open enrollment or a qualifying event is initiated by accessing Employee Self Service through the ITC Portal on the i2net. Approval of your elections requires that you click the approval check mark and click the submit button.

See Using the Electronic Open Enrollment Form.

ENROLLMENT CHANGES

Contact the Employee Benefits Office to enroll new dependents within 31 days of eligibility; for example, a spouse should be added within 31 days of the marriage or a newborn or adopted child should be added within 31 days of birth or adoption. Otherwise, dependents may only be added during the next open enrollment period. For medical plans, a newborn child is covered automatically from birth for 31 days, if a parent is covered. Beyond that, a child’s coverage is effective on the date of enrollment. All qualifying events must be supported by appropriate documents, i.e., marriage certificate, birth certificate, loss of coverage documentation, divorce decree, etc.

This section is for reference purposes only. Please refer to the official benefit documentation for specific plan coverages, exclusions, and limitations.