USERRA and Health Insurance

aliciac

I'm confused on the wording in USERRA with regard to health insurance while on active duty. We have a truck driver who is headed off to Iraq for a year. USERRA says he has the right to continue his coverage for 24 months...does that mean that we have to continue paying our portion of his insurance or does that simply give him the option of paying the full cost himself should he wish to keep it sort of like extended COBRA?

LarryC

It is COBRA. Most insurances won't cover someone on active military duty, but he and his dependents would still have the right to continue through COBRA should they choose.

WT

For the first 30 days you need to extend coverage and the employee pays what an active employee would pay. After that, the employee can receive coverage if he pays 102%. It is like COBRA but is not COBRA in that it is not coverage mandated by that statute but rather is mandated by USERRA. Since it is not COBRA, it will differ in some details. However, since military personnel are eligible for Tricare, they seldom want to pay for coverage.

LarryC

WT is right, the regs say it is similar but not identical to COBRA. Preceding sections of the regs say that the employee should be afforded the same favorablt treatment as other employees on nonmilitary leaves, which then brings COBRA into play.

The interpretation would then be to offer COBRA, but strectch it to comply with USERRA. We've ammended our COBRA administartion to envelope the USERRA regs.

aliciac

Thank you to all of you, that was extremely helpful.