2019 Group Program SPDs and SMMs Available Starting December 18

Starting December 18, watch your Message Center for alert(s) linking to your cooperative’s 2019 summary plan description (SPD) and summary of material modifications (SMM) documents. Benefits administrators will receive a notification each time one or more documents are available. Download and distribute these SPDs and SMMs to participants by March 1, 2019 and to employees you hire in 2019 within 90 days of their hire date. You may receive several alerts between December 18 and December 31 as documents for different plans under the Group Benefits Program are released.

You’ll receive a 2019 SPD for existing plans that you changed and new plans that you modeled during annual renewal using the Benefit Plan Rating and Renewal tool. You’ll receive a 2019 SMM for plans that you confirmed without making changes.

A list of 2019 group plan changes is available on the Employee Benefits website.

Before you distribute 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.

A checklist of review, distribution, and acknowledgement tasks is available online to help you to meet the correct deadlines and distribute the documents properly. You’ll also find guidelines to help you decide if you can distribute documents electronically for certain participants.

After you distribute the SPDs, acknowledge distribution online. From this location, you can also view existing group plan documents (including 2018 summary of benefits and coverage (SBC) notices) and finish any outstanding distribution acknowledgements.

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.