Changing Employer Coverage

Changing from Employer Coverage

In today’s world, it is not uncommon for a retiree to find themselves being dropped off of their former employer’s coverage. This opens a small window of opportunity for a person to choose a different type of insurance plan to cover themselves. Your employer will provide you with something called a Certificate of Creditable Coverage. It is an important letter you should keep, stating you have had coverage from insurance for a period of time, usually since you began Medicare, and Medicare should waive any penalties associated with late enrollment as a result. Always keep the original of that letter and send copies to either an insurance company you are enrolling into or the government, if either of them request a copy.

When you are dropped from coverage, you are given a 63 day window from the time you are notified you will be dropped or from the time you are dropped (whichever comes later) to obtain other coverage. If you choose a Medicare Advantage plan or a Prescription Drug plan, make sure the person enrolling you knows you are eligible for entry because you have been dropped from employer coverage. If you are enrolling into a Medicare Supplement Insurance Plan, you are allowed in this 63 day window to get certain plans with no questions asked. The other plan options may be available to you, and at a more desirable price, but you may have to answer health questions and go through underwriting to get the plan. We go into great detail on the benefits of the different Medicare supplement plan letters in our Medicare Supplement Insurance Plans video series.