Qualified Beneficiary?

Jackson

We have a former employee who terminated from us 12 months ago and continued his medical benefits through COBRA. Normally, he would have had only 18 months of coverage. Now he informs us that he and his spouse divorced this month (December). I know his spouse is entitled to extend her coverage up to a total of 36 months as a "qualified beneficiary". However, is he considered a "qualified beneficiay" also? Is he now eligible to extend his COBRA period up to a total of 36 months also?

Jackson

Since no one has answered my inquiry, I thought I would post what I've been advised to do by our insurance broker. According to their legal counsel, the divorced spouse would have her COBRA period extended for a total of 36 months from the original qualifying event (the time her husband terminated employment with us). That gives her 24 more months of coverage. Our former employee, however, only gets a total of 18 months from the original qualifying event. So, he has only 6 more months of COBRA benefits. As with so many of these laws, that seems screwy somehow, but apparently it is the correct answer.

Scott Ruth

This is the way I have seen this applied. If you think about it, this just puts the parties in the same position as if the divorce occurred just before the employee terminated. The ex-spouse would have gotten 36 months because of the divorce and the employee only 18 months because of a termination of employment.


>Since no one has answered my inquiry, I thought I would post what I've
>been advised to do by our insurance broker. According to their legal
>counsel, the divorced spouse would have her COBRA period extended for
>a total of 36 months from the original qualifying event (the time her
>husband terminated employment with us). That gives her 24 more months
>of coverage. Our former employee, however, only gets a total of 18
>months from the original qualifying event. So, he has only 6 more
>months of COBRA benefits. As with so many of these laws, that seems
>screwy somehow, but apparently it is the correct answer.