As the Open Enrollment period drew to a close, for all new Standard Short Term Disability enrollees, Union Benefit Planners conducted an audit to ensure all new premium was begin collected properly. At completion of the audit, we found 305 members that were neglected as premiums were not being payroll deducted by the TPA.
The TPA sent premium notices to the missed deducted members for May only. All missed deducted members will see the correct payroll deductions come out of their checks beginning June 1, 2011. Although these members sent in enrollment forms earlier, they will only owe from the month of May. Most of these members enrolled much earlier but UBP and the Standard thought it would be best to move forward and not have those members responsible for back premium.
We are only billing these members (305) so that they could pay their missed May premium. We wanted to insure sure that Standard received the premium for May as they are forgoing all the money back to Jan 1, 2011. We billed these 305 missed deducted members so that they would be back on track for the June 1 payroll deduction. This is a payroll deducted benefit only and that is not being changed.
These active members are covered beginning in May since we found the error in May. When we found all these missed members, we needed to put an amendment together with the Standard in the policy that protected these members. If we began in June, and a member had to file a claim in May, they would have had to pay all the back premium back to January. With covering the member as of May, the member only has to pay premium as of this month which saves them approximately $79.
Please let me know if you should have any further questions and you may contact:
Union Benefit Planners at 866-386-6060.
—
Thank You,
D’Ann Johnson
TWU Local 514
918-384-9760