We know it’s important for your annual benefits enrollment event to be successful. This article lets you know what to expect for your enrollment event in Maxwell, including:
- Preparing for Open Enrollment
- Set up and Kick Off Your Open Enrollment
- Monitoring Open Enrollment
- Ending & Closing out Open Enrollment
You’ll prepare for your Open Enrollment in Maxwell in the steps listed below.
- Provide your your Implementation Manager with your benefit package and enrollment event details
Well before the plan effective date, you will send us the benefits package your company is offering this year, as well as the time period you'll set for your enrollment event (the period of time your employees can enroll in their benefits). You will use this information to set up your enrollment event in Maxwell. - Prepare your employees for an annual benefits enrollment in Maxwell
It’s a great idea to prepare your employees ahead of time. A few weeks before your benefits enrollment begins, start creating awareness by telling your employees details about what you’ll be offering and introducing/re-familiarizing them with Maxwell (ex: by sending them the link to this video).
Set up and Kick off Your Open Enrollment
- Set up your Open Enrollment in Maxwell
Once you have prepared for Open Enrollment (OE), and your implementation or renewal has been completed in Maxwell, it’s time to set up your enrollment event. You will take this step by using the OE Setup Tool. When your event gets closer, visit this article for more details on these steps. - Review your portal settings
Just before your event begins, make sure your settings are setup to make life easier for you and your employees during annual benefits enrollment. - Let your employees know that the enrollment event is here
Once your enrollment event setup in Maxwell is complete, you’re ready to send emails to your employees letting them know they can log into Maxwell and shop for benefits! We recommend sending this email on the start date of the event, when the benefits will be available for shopping. You can send the email straight from the widget on the Dashboard.
After your enrollment event has been kicked off and your employees have started shopping, you can monitor their progress right in Maxwell. When you’re in the middle of your annual benefits enrollment event, view this article for all the details on the below steps.
- Monitor employee progress on the Dashboard
The Dashboard is the best place to view your employees’ progress at a high level. You’ll see how many employees haven’t started, how many are in progress, and how many have checked out of shopping. See this article for the details on each status. - Send reminder emails to employees
You may find your employees will need some nudging to complete their enrollment. Send employees in the “Not Started” and “In Progress” status reminder emails straight from the Dashboard. Recommended templates will be ready to go. - Extend Open Enrollment
If you have employees who are not going to complete their enrollment in time, you have the option of extending your Open Enrollment period. Follow these steps!
Once you’ve confirmed all your employees have submitted their elections successfully in Maxwell, there are now just a few steps you’ll want to take to close out the event. When you go to take these steps, view this article for more information.
- End your enrollment event in Maxwell
Employees elections will process automatically and become enrollments in Maxwell when you end the event. - Submit employee elections to carriers
How you’ll do this depends on the carrier, as they vary in the format they accept election information. Typically, you’ll submit information by EDI connection, enrollment forms, carrier web-based enrollment portals, or carrier reports/spreadsheets. See this article for more information on each. - Review your portal settings
Just as you changed your settings in preparation for the enrollment event, you’ll want to make sure to change them back to suit ongoing enrollments once this is over. - Post enrollment event corrections and changes
As your annual benefit enrollment event comes to a close, you may find that you have a few changes or corrections to make to employee elections. Read more about how to make those changes here.