2021 Group Program SPDs Available Starting December 21

Your cooperative’s 2021 summary plan description (SPD) documents will be available for download and distribution to plan participants starting December 21, 2020. The documents are due to participants and beneficiaries by the usual date of March 1, 2021. Also give them to employees hired during 2021 within 90 days of their hire date.

On December 21, benefits administrators will receive one or more Message Center notifications linking to the Group Plan Documents page on the Employee Benefits website, where 2021 SPDs will be available for download. Note that the Group Benefit plans were restated in 2021, so co-ops will receive new SPDs for all plans, even if no changes were made to plan provisions during annual renewal.

After downloading your SPDs, review them to ensure they correctly reflect the elections you made during annual renewal (e.g., eligibility, premium cost-sharing, deductible amounts and coinsurance), even if those elections did not change from 2020. Also, ensure those provisions, as described in the SPD, properly reflect your co-op’s human resources policies and procedures. Do this before distributing the SPDs. If the SPDs don’t match the provisions you elected, contact the benefits compliance team right away.

Visit the BA Guide to find a full distribution checklist, guidelines for who must receive SPDs, and electronic distribution guidelines. If you choose an electronic distribution method, you must follow the 2002 rules described on the Distributing Plan Documents page of the BA Guide. If your co-op’s business operations have been negatively impacted by the pandemic, check the COVID-19 page on timeline extensions to find out if your co-op can use certain temporary electronic delivery methods.

You can also download and review the annual list of group benefit plan changes so that you can answer any questions participants may have about changes to the plans during 2021.

Finally, acknowledge distributing each SPD. Do this right after distributing your documents to participants. Use the Message Center alert link or go directly to the Group Plan Documents page on the Employee Benefits website. You can simultaneously acknowledge distribution for multiple documents that you provided to participants on the same date. Before acknowledging distribution for 2021 documents, please complete any older acknowledgements that are still outstanding.

If you have questions about your SPDs, call the group compliance team at 866.673.2299, option 7, or email group.compliance@nreca.coop.