In Maxwell, an employee cannot shop for benefits due to an annual Open Enrollment, as well as a new hire or life event, at the same time. In this article, we’ll review how to get employees with new hires/life events added to your OE before you complete setup, and what to do once OE has been setup and begun.
- How to include employees with new hire/life events in OE before you complete setup
- How to run an individual OE for employees who are excluded from the company's OE
- How to enroll an employee in two plan years of coverage due to a life event
- Frequently asked questions
How to include employees with new hires/change events in OE before you complete setup
As you set up your OE, all employees who are new hires, in a change event, or have a future termination date will be listed under “warnings” in your OE Summary.
How to run an individual OE for employees who are excluded from the company's OE
Once you set up your OE, any of the excluded employees listed cannot be added back into the main OE, even if you do close out their event. However, you can run an "Individual Open Enrollment" for them so they can enroll in the benefits they're eligible for as part of the OE.
- Review and approve their existing life event. By approving the event, you're approving the changes to the employee's current benefits.
- You'll see an alert bar on the employee's profile letting them know that the employee is also eligible to shop for their future benefits due to their individual annual enrollment. Click Create Event to set up an individual open enrollment for this employee. Note: This banner will appear if the Open Enrollment was set up and has a start date within the last 30 days.
- You'll see a pop-up that will ask you to confirm that you want to set up the individual OE. You can check the box to invite the employee to shop for benefits. This will allow you to customize an email to send to the employee letting them know it's time to shop for their future benefits. Click Create Event.
- From here, the employee is set to shop for their future benefits that are available due to their OE! You can also shop on their behalf. When the shopping is over, review and approve the event.
New hire
Let’s say you hired a new employee on 12/1/18 with a 12/1/2018 effective date for 2018 benefits, but your 2019 OE period is 12/1/18 - 12/10/18 for 1/1/2019 effective benefits. Of course, you want to make sure this employee gets coverage for December 2018 but also has the opportunity to enroll during their annual OE. You should take these steps:
- Add the employee to Maxwell. The employee should now log into Maxwell and shop for their 2018 benefits. They won't have their 2019 benefits available to them yet.
- Once the employee has submitted their enrollment for their 2018 benefits, review and approve their new hire event. By approving the event, you're enrolling the employee in their 2018 benefits.
- You'll see an alert bar on the employee's profile letting them know that the employee is also eligible to shop for their future benefits due to their individual annual enrollment. Click Create Event to set up an individual open enrollment for this employee. Note: This banner will appear if the Open Enrollment has been set up or ended within the last 30 days.
- You'll see a pop-up that will ask you to confirm that you want to set up the individual OE. You can check the box to invite the employee to shop for benefits. This will allow you to customize an email to send to the employee letting them know it's time to shop for their future benefits. Click Create Event.
- From here, the employee is set to shop for their future benefits! You can also shop on their behalf. When the shopping is over, review and approve the event.
How to enroll an employee in two plan years of coverage due to a life event
Sometimes an employee will be eligible to change two plans year of coverage due to a life event. For example, let's say you ran an Open Enrollment from 12/1/2018-12/10/2018 for a 1/1/2019 effective date. The employee has already selected their coverage for 1/1/2019 and you've approved it. They also have current coverage effective 1/1/2018-12/31/2018. They get married on 12/15/2018 and want to update both their current and future effective benefits. Here's how you should handle this:
- Initiate a life event by clicking Make Changes on the employee's profile. The employee can also initiate this from their side.
- A pop-up will ask you to enter the type of life event and the date that it occurred. It will also ask you which benefits you want to update, the current ones or the future ones. Since you want to update both sets of benefits, you should start with the current ones. Select "Current" and click Create Event.
- Current benefits will be available to review, but future benefits will not. Either you or the employee should review and make changes to their current benefits.
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When the changes have been submitted (or completed by you on the employee's behalf), you should review and approve them.
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You can then initiate another life event, but select "Future" when asked what benefits you want to update.
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Future benefits will now be available to review. Either you or the employee should review and make changes to their future effective benefits.
- When the changes have been submitted (or completed by you on the employee's behalf), you should review and approve them.
FAQ
- My employee is in Open Enrollment, but a life event came up that he needs to submit in Maxwell. How do they submit the life event and enroll in benefits they're currently eligible for while they're in OE?
You will need to wait until your company's Open Enrollment period has ended for the employee to submit the life event, or for you to submit it on their behalf.