Canceling health insurance while on FMLA

Squishypig

We have an employee who was out on WC starting September 2000. He did not pay his health insurance premium and finally in December 2000, the HR person before me canceled his health insurance. She also did not realize that she could run FMLA concurently with WC so she finally put him on FMLA in April 2001. He came back before the 12 weeks were up.

Since technically he did not have insurance when he was put on FMLA, are we obligated to put him back on our insurance at the 75% he was at before his injury? We now have an employer contribution cap for his position at 25%. It is my understanding that we have to return him to equivalent position, pay and benefits for the position that we offered for that position at the time of his return. So when he returned we reinstated him in his position, at equal pay and offered him the insurance with the updated 25% cap, we should be OK, right?

BTW- Does anyone else have a hard time reading the publication that the DOL puts out about FMLA? It is like reading a debate without ever hearing what the outcome is!!!!

Carol CA

Although I had a hard time following your question, if I understood it correctly, his insurance was cancelled due to non-payment of premium. You should be OK with this. The FMLA requires you continue to offer benefits like you would to regular employees. It does not mean, however, that the employee can get a free ride. They still need to pay their portion of the premiums, and if they fail to do so, you can cancel the insurance.

Rockie

You were perfectly within your rights to cancel his insurance for nonpayment of premiums. When he comes back from leave, he can be offered the insurance again, but he may have to requalify for insurance (i.e., complete a statement of insurability). Also, he is responsible for paying the premiums he owed the company while he was out before the insurance was cancelled.

We often have this problem of "running down" employees who are out on FMLA for nonpayment of premiums. After we call them and get no response, we send a certified letter that their insurance will be cancelled on such and such a date. If they don't respond, we simply cancel the insurance. A couple of people(the irresponsible ones) have had "rude awakenings" when they went to use their insurance while out on leave to find out it had been cancelled, but as long as they are properly notified, then there's no problem with the FMLA on this.