2018 Group Program SPDs and SMMs Now Available
Your 2018 NRECA Group Benefits Program summary plan description (SPD) and summary of material modification documents are now available in the Group Plan Documents section of the Employee Benefits website. Give them to current participants by March 1, 2018 and to employees you hire in 2018 within 90 days of their hire date.
SPDs and SMMs for plans with special or exception designs will continue to be released during January and will be posted by January 31.
New 2018 SPDs were issued for:
- All group benefit plans for which your co-op changed plan design or eligibility for 2018.
- All NRECA medical plans (HDPPO, PPO, Simple, HD Indemnity and Indemnity)
- All stand-alone wellness plans
- Group Term Life and AD&D insurance
- Director’s Life and AD&D insurance, and
- Director’s AD&D Only insurance
For other plans and for plans with no provisional changes as described above, SMMs were issued to reflect operational and claim processing changes made by NRECA.
Follow the online checklist of review, distribution, and acknowledgement tasks. Here is a summary:
- Before distributing your documents, review them to confirm that the elections your co-op made during annual renewal in Benefit Plan Rating and Renewal (e.g., deductible amounts and coinsurance) are correct.
- Refer to the list of 2018 changes for a summary of 2018 plan changes.
- Review the guidelines for electronic distribution before selecting a distribution method.
- Give the SPD or SMM to enrolled participants for each group benefit plan your co-op offers during 2018. COBRA plan participants, retirees, surviving dependents and any children under a qualified medical child support order must also receive their own copy if they do not reside with your employee.
- Acknowledge distribution. SPDs and SMMs requiring acknowledgement are listed in the “Documents Requiring Acknowledgement” section of the Group Plan Documents page.
If you have questions about downloading or accessing your SPDs and SMMs, call the Member Contact Center at 866.673.2299 or contactcenter@nreca.coop.
For all other SPD or SMM questions, call the benefits compliance team at 866.673.2299, option 7, or email us at group.compliance@nreca.coop.