Failure to offer Health Insurance After 90 Day Probationary Period

4hrhelp

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 02-15-04 AT 11:59PM (CST)[/font][br][br]In an employment contract that specifically states that health insurance will be offered in 90 days following hiring. If the employer fails to offer said insurance to the employee in the 90 day period, does this qualify as a major breech of the contract allowing an employee to leave said contract?

This is a Texas situation and any advice would be appreciated. Please provide me with the law that allows the employee to leave, given the employer has breeched the contract.

If you feel that this is not a breech, please give rationale.

The situation is sticky and any advice will be helpful. This is a small company.

Thank you.

ritaanz

It is difficult to give you a reasonable answer. First, we have no idea of the wording in your contract. Secondly, why wasn't the health insurance offered? An oversight?

Don D

I think breeches of contract are best handled by attorneys. If your company has one, I would have HR give him/her a call and get a quick answer. Remind the attorney that this is a minimum billable hours inquiry. Otherwise, I personally would think it is major enough to call it a breech.

shlshsm

Was the failure to provide health insurance as an employment benefit intentional or unintentional? Was the probationary period extended whereby the obligation to provide health insurance was also extended?

If there is a written contract, and the contents of the contract guarantees employment benefits to include health insurance, then the employer is responsible for providing the benefits. If the provisions of the contract specify an at-will employment relationship where either party can terminate the employment contract, for cause or no cause, the employee can leave under any circumstance possibly citing the failure of the employer to abide by the contract.

There are several other issues to consider. Failure to provide health insurance in accordance with the signed contract can be grounds for a discrimination lawsuit especially if this is the only incident. Then you have HIPAA that allows employees to obtain healthcare benfits from employers, even if they or their dependents have a pre-existing condition when prior coverage has been in force.

Suggestion: Correct the situation and promptly provide health insurance. If after the 90 days, and any medical expenses were incurred by the employee, step in and self-insure the benefit cost in accordance with your healthcare benefit plan design, subject to any deductible or co-pay. Then scramble to get the employee the coverage that is due as defined in the contract.

Hope this helps...

Oh, I am in Mississippi, an at-will employer. We replaced the term, "probationary," with "orientation" period. The term probationary sugggests a guarantee of employment after 90 days. We provide health insurance after 30 days of continuous employment despite the 90 orientation period. If the orientation period is unsuccessful, we terminate.

System

4hrhelp, welcome to the Forum!

Breach-of-contract law typically isn't in a statute but is a matter of a court interpreting the contract. But if you clearly promised insurance and didn't deliver, that sounds pretty major to me unless you fix it real soon.

But that's just my I'm-not-a-lawyer opinion. For a concrete answer you'd need to consult a lawyer in Texas. If you don't have one, you could contact the ones who write Texas Employment Law Letter:
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/necn/bios/txemp.shtml[/url]

Good luck.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com