Changing Your Benefits

• All changes to benefit plans must be processed through the Plano ISD Benefits Department.  Please contact us to discuss your situation and request forms.  (Life insurance forms are available online and can be submitted to our office anytime during the year.)
• Please contact us as soon as possible to request paperwork, which must be completed and returned to our office within 31 days of the Change in Status event.  If canceling coverage, the paperwork must be completed prior to the requested cancelation date.
• We will let you know if additional documentation is required, such as a letter from your spouse's employer, a copy of a marriage license, divorce papers, adoption papers, etc.

When Can I Change My Benefits?

1. Annual Open Enrollment

   Each year, employees will receive an instruction booklet to guide them through the online enrollment process.  Employees may request any type of change, and all changes requested within the annual open enrollment period will become effective for the next plan year, September 1. The published deadline will apply to all changes.

2. Change in Status, after the start of the plan year

   The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows certain benefit changes to be made mid-year, only as a result of a "change in status". TRS-ActiveCare also has additional rules which further limit mid-year benefit changes.

Certain changes may be permitted due to:

• • involuntary loss of other coverage
  • gaining other coverage
  • birth/adoption
  • marriage
  • divorce

Among other possible events, the following do not qualify for a special enrollment event:

• • dropping coverage because of increased premiums or reduced benefits (including a surcharge or benefit reduction for spousal coverage)
  • reduction in the employer's contribution to the premium
  • voluntary termination of other coverage, including failure to pay premiums
  • termination of other coverage for cause (such as making a fraudulent claim or an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact in connection with the coverage)

Please contact our office to request paperwork as soon as possible. We will let you know what you need to return to us and when it is due.

To add coverage, the change can only be made:

1) as a result of an involuntary loss of other coverage, or as a result of acquiring new eligible dependents; and
2) on the 1st of the month following the event; and
3) if the paperwork is signed and returned to the PISD benefits office within 31 calendar days after the event.

To drop coverage, the change can only be made:

1) as a result of a qualifying event as described in the flexible benefit plan document (for example: gaining new coverage through a spouse's employer, Health Insurance Marketplace, Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP, or for an ineligible dependent); and
2) after the qualifying event has occurred; and
3) no earlier than the 1st of the month following the date you sign the change form.