Open enrollment is the annual window for employees to make benefit elections. Outside this period, changes typically require qualifying life events. This structure helps employers manage plan participation and costs while giving employees regular opportunity to adjust coverage.
Typical Process
Open enrollment involves communicating plan options and changes, providing decision-support tools, collecting employee elections through enrollment systems, verifying dependent eligibility, processing elections with carriers, and confirming enrollments to employees.
Employee Communications
Effective communication helps employees make informed decisions. This includes explaining plan options and costs, highlighting changes from prior year, providing comparison tools, offering decision support resources, and multiple reminders about deadlines.
Passive vs. Active Enrollment
Passive enrollment carries forward prior elections if employees take no action. Active enrollment requires positive elections each year. Active enrollment increases workload but ensures intentional decisions. Approach choice depends on plan stability, desired participation, and administrative capacity.