Recommendations for suggesting employer require beneficiary form

[yorkriver1]

Group life agents:
How to persist in requiring employees on the group medical plan to complete a beneficiary form.
One of my employer groups has a health insurance group plan from a major carrier that is under an association subset of benefits, including life insurance for employee and family. There is no automatic process for the covered employees to complete a beneficiary form.
I recall being required to fill out a beneficiary form when I worked for an employer with about 3,000 employees & there was automatic life coverage on the benefit plan. (my group is about 1.5% of that size).
I once sent them a form I found on SHRM's website. No response. I am pretty sure that their 401K vendor must be requiring this.

 

[DHK]

Here's a thought: it should be part of the application - paper or online. (Gasp!)

If you put it online, put a red (*) for it making it a required field.

 

[yorkriver1]

Yeah, I know, pretty obvious. That would mean about 30+ people on the group would need to do it now, after open enrollment. I could accompany the form to the benefits staff member at the employer with the one pager of the life (and other perks) benefit, which is in their annual plan booklet, but who reads it, right?

 

[DHK]

I'd let the owner/HR rep be an ass and you be the hero.

"You have two weeks to turn in a beneficiary form or all your benefit elections will be cancelled. No exceptions. It's the law and requirements for these programs."

You come in as the hero to make sure that they all have current beneficiary forms.

 

[scagnt83]

No law against not listing a beneficiary. Especially the supp ins built into a group health plan.

Its on the app for BCBSofSC. But if left blank it is not flagged or rejected.

But yeah, they should have it listed. BCBS has no real process to follow up on this that I am aware of (on small group side at least). Its on the broker or the employer to go through and send a follow up letter or have some type of follow up process.

Just talk to the employer and explain the benefits to employees... and offer some type of solution, such as a form letter they could use.

 

[DHK]

True. Just coming up with some idea.

 

[Allen Trent]

Are you 100% certain that the plan or policy doesnt already have default language for situations where no bene was listed? some/many plans in group & retirement do & it go something like this if no affirmative selection made:

Surviving spouse, if any. If none, equally to surviving children of the deceased, if none then to deceased parents, if none then to deceased siblings, if none then to probate estate.

 

[yorkriver1]

Are you 100% certain that the plan or policy doesnt already have default language for situations where no bene was listed? some/many plans in group & retirement do & it go something like this if no affirmative selection made:

Surviving spouse, if any. If none, equally to surviving children of the deceased, if none then to deceased parents, if none then to deceased siblings, if none then to probate estate.

Yes, on the claim where the parents of a child weren't married, and the parent who passed away didn't have a beneficiary named. The group plan's life claim processor stated that they go with the general rules most states use, and will follow the state if no beneficiary named. My point was to speed up the claim by naming the beneficiary and further, for clients not on group who are one on one to me, to think about a more formal guardian choice. This blends into another topic, which is that one of my clients some years ago was working on this, in a will, as their sibling and sibling's spouse were killed in an auto accident. The still living sibling, my client, was frustrated because there was no clear way to determine which family would be the guardian of the children. The accident happened in a county where the other spouse's family lived, and although my client had always been told they would be the guardian of choice for the children, the court of the county where the accident happened had control, and the other family was claiming the children. PS, there was a lot of life insurance involved, too. Not that my client was all about that, it was the long term agreement they had about who took the children. No will was in place to specify.
Have You Named a Legal Guardian for Your Kids?

 

[Allen Trent]

Yes, on the claim where the parents of a child weren't married, and the parent who passed away didn't have a beneficiary named. The group plan's life claim processor stated that they go with the general rules most states use, and will follow the state if no beneficiary named. My point was to speed up the claim by naming the beneficiary and further, for clients not on group who are one on one to me, to think about a more formal guardian choice. This blends into another topic, which is that one of my clients some years ago was working on this, in a will, as their sibling and sibling's spouse were killed in an auto accident. The still living sibling, my client, was frustrated because there was no clear way to determine which family would be the guardian of the children. The accident happened in a county where the other spouse's family lived, and although my client had always been told they would be the guardian of choice for the children, the court of the county where the accident happened had control, and the other family was claiming the children. PS, there was a lot of life insurance involved, too. Not that my client was all about that, it was the long term agreement they had about who took the children. No will was in place to specify.
Have You Named a Legal Guardian for Your Kids?

While I definitely suggest naming exact beneficiary, it sounds like you need not worry near as much as we do in the non-group market where there is no default policy language to pay the claims & the money goes to probate court. here is how a lot of the group contracts read & have very solid standard default beneficiary if none is otherwise named. this is from a policy just posted on the forum on another topic :

 

[yorkriver1]

While I definitely suggest naming exact beneficiary, it sounds like you need not worry near as much as we do in the non-group market where there is no default policy language to pay the claims & the money goes to probate court. here is how a lot of the group contracts read & have very solid standard default beneficiary if none is otherwise named. this is from a policy just posted on the forum on another topicView attachment 6752 :
View attachment 6752

Thanks, helpful!
So, I will check with the claims department for that benefit and maybe it won't be as urgent. The life coverage language was at one time built into the health EOC--there have been 2 deaths in the last 6 years--so I have looked at the EOC for it and found it for the 1st claim, but isn't built in now, saw that for the 2nd claim. Since it's an association benefit the carrier must have done it to simplify, as the same medical plan could also be issued to employer groups not members of the association, therefore no life benefit.