Going on a leave of absence can bring many questions about your health benefits, deductions, accruals, and payment responsibilities. This page provides important information to help you understand what happens to your benefits while you are away from work and what steps you may need to take to keep your coverage active.
Important: Your benefit responsibility depends on the type of leave you are approved for. Employees should work with their department regarding their leave status and accrual usage and contact the Benefits Division with questions regarding benefit premiums and payments.
Employees may have the option to use available accruals to maintain their benefits while on leave.
Your department will work with the appropriate County office to determine the minimum number of hours that must be used each pay period to maintain your benefits.
It is the employee’s responsibility to verify that the correct number of hours is being used each pay period to maintain benefits.
Even being short by 15 minutes may result in your benefits terminating and require an over-the-counter payment to reinstate coverage.
If you do not have enough hours to maintain benefits, you may be responsible for paying both the County portion and your employee portion of your benefit premiums to have your coverage reinstated.
If you experience a Qualifying Life Event (QLE) while you are on leave and make changes to your benefit elections, your benefit deductions may change.
Examples may include adding or removing a dependent or changing benefit elections following an eligible qualifying event.
After making any benefit changes, contact your department to verify that the number of accrual hours being used is still sufficient to cover your updated benefit deductions.
The number of hours that previously covered your benefits may no longer be sufficient after your elections change.
If your benefits are not deducted through payroll using hours/accruals, you may be required to make an over-the-counter payment directly to the Benefits Division.
Benefit payments are due biweekly.
Benefit eligibility information is sent to the benefit providers on Thursday before payday.
If your required over-the-counter payment has not been received by the deadline, the provider may terminate your coverage in its system.
Once the required payment is received, your benefits can be reinstated without a lapse in coverage. However, there may be a delay before the provider’s system reflects your reinstatement.
During that processing period, you could experience temporary issues such as:
To help prevent these issues, please make all required benefit payments by the established deadline.