COBRA

joyce

An employee has been terminated due to her failure to return from sick leave. She did not qualify for FMLA leave. We tried contacting her several times to no avail. Is she entitled to COBRA?

bsa

Yes, if she had insurance coverage at the time of termination. Be sure to send you notification letter with a "certificate of mailing" or by "certified mail." You have 14-days from date of termination to send your first letter and the clock starts ticking for her on the date of your letter. My insurance prefers to terminate coverage immediately and re-instate if COBRA is accepted.

Down_the_Middle

Sure, assuming the employee had the coverage(s) at time of termination.

Scott Ruth

She is entitled to COBRA regardless of when her coverage ended. You need to send her a COBRA notice to her last known mailing address. Certified mail is a good idea. She has 60 days from the notice to elect, retroactively.

Mikki H

I've always heard that certified mail was NOT a good idea because if the person did not sign for it and you got the green card back, then that proves that they did not get notice. The last seminar I attended recommended a "certificate of mailing" instead. This proves that you mailed it to a certain address on a certain date.

Anita

Any kind of paperwork that I want to have proof of sending I use certificate of mailing. Alot of people won't accept certified mail, as it usually means "bad news". This way I have proof that I sent the information (and its cheaper than certified) and if the employee chooses not to read it, that's their problem. I have never had any trouble with sending certificate of mailing vs certified. On occasion I have sent both certificate of mailing and certified (especially if its workers comp. related.)

cedupree

You should keep some kind of notebook for all your COBRA stuff. Keep a copy of the letter you send and staple the certificate of mailing to it. That way it will be easy to locate if need to reference it. Also being redundant -- certificate of mailing takes all the burden off of you and proof that you did your part.