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Early Retirement & COBRA

ritaanzritaanz 2,665 Posts
in HR & Employment Law Vote Up0Vote Down
I have an employee who has worked for us for over 20 years. S/he wants to reduce their working hours to 18 hours a week as an early retirement(62 years old). We could certainly use their expertise on a part time basis. This will trigger COBRA. The employee has asked that we pay the COBRA while they are working part time for us.
My concern is establishing a precedent for other employees that want to retire early and want the company to pay for their COBRA. Anyone out there have any comments? Are we opening up a can of worms?
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Comments

  • 2 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • njjelnjjel 1,235 Posts
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    I would assume not all employees that retire early will be working part time for the company. Therefore, this would not set precedent for those employees only for those that retire (early or normal time). However, another thought would be to compensate this employee the amount of the COBRA cost in their pay.
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  • Margaret MorfordMargaret Morford 1,143 Posts
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    I agree with Njjel. If you are going to draft a policy about this, be sure to include in the language that the ability to convert to part-time status is contingent upon company needs and the employee's past work record. This will insure that you have the final approval on whether an individual gets to convert to this status.

    Margaret Morford
    theHRedge
    615-371-8200
    [email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
    [url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]
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