Insurance Carrier Responses to COVID-19

During the constantly changing COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to provide a resource page where you can get updated information from your insurance carriers regarding their response. Feel free to reach out to our team at Help@benefitexperts.com if you have questions about your specific carrier, policy, etc.

A few highlights of what carriers are offering:

Benefit Carriers:

Most carriers are allowing extended grace periods for premium bills. Make sure you call the carrier and speak to their billing department to confirm grace period if you intend to pay a bill late, to make sure the carrier does not enact cancellation.
Most carriers are allowing a special enrollment period, meaning employees who have waived during the course of the year can come onto the plan outside of open enrollment without a qualifying event, if they act within this limited window.
Most carriers are allowing furloughed workers to remain covered as if they were full time employees.
Most health carriers are offering COVID-19 testing free of charge. Some are also offering telemedicine for any reason (not just COVID-19 related) free of charge, for a limited time.

Commercial Insurance Carriers:

Most carriers are honoring mid-term endorsement requests to bring down payroll or revenue estimates (therefore lowering premium in most cases).
Most carriers are delaying cancellation and late fees for late payments for the time being. If you wish to make a late payment, make sure you contact your individual carrier and notify them of your plans/confirm their policy. Contact information for the billing departments are included on the invoices for each particular carrier.