Travis County Commissioners Court
July 12, 2005
Item 17
17-a, approve offering optional 100% voluntary accidental death or dismemberment insurance, ad and d, to employees and 17 b, authorize payroll deduction for the voluntary accidental coverage effective October 1, 2005.
>> morning, judge, Commissioners. We had this before you last week and there was some confusion that we wanted to resolve before we brought this back. We have been able to resolve the issue. The proposal from cigna is a voluntary accidental death and dismemberment policy for our employees, and they will allow all employees to participate. This is strictly voluntary and would be for employees and their families. The rate -- let me make sure I give you the correct rate. The rate for employees would be two and a half cents per thousand. They can buy up to five hundred thousand dollars' worth of insurance, so that would be $12.50 a month that employees would pay for their coverage. Or it's 4.042 cents for the family, which would be just slightly under $20 a month. We think this is a good program for employees, especially our law enforcement employees who would benefit from having this type of insurance.
>> it's in addition to the existing accidental death and dismemberment coverage that we offer as part of our basic life and our supplemental life, so it would be a totally separate product in addition to that.
>> this is offered by cigna insurance company.
>> on the basic one does the county pay for that or the employee?
>> the basic, the county does.
>> this gets employees interested in additional coverage an opportunity to go out and at low cost purchase additional insurance basically?
>> right. It doesn't replace the current life insurance, either the basic or the supplemental. That's still available to employees. This is more of an add-on that employees can take. And again, it's strictly accidental death and dismemberment, so it's a good program at a very reasonable cost. And employees -- we encourage them to look into this because it's a good program, especially for our law enforcement employees.
>> if we approve item 17 a and b today, how will you get this out to the employees to make sure that they have an opportunity to participate? How will that be done? During the open enrollment? This is something new, of course, that we haven't had before.
>> this will be part of the open enrollment process. We will be getting information from cigna that we can distribute to employees throughout the county. We'll do it through departments as well as in our sessions that we're holding before employees to talk about health insurance, we will provide this information as well so that employees are aware of it. Also, cigna has agreed to provide a couple of people to go out within the county and hold meetings to explain this program as well.
>> so more specific purposes as far as questions, cigna will be available for that? That's what you're saying?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> and we'll be mentioning this in our training programs that are going on around the county now to talk about health insurance and the other benefits. In addition to this, our supplemental life insurance is going to be increasing from the maximum of 125,000 up to 200,000, so there's a lot of education we're going to be doing on the health and life insurance as we go out into the county.
>> okay. B in. Is to authorize payroll deduction for this insurance for those employees that select the voluntary ad and d that their premiums would be deducted through payroll.
>> and payroll wanted us to mention on b that the first payroll deduction would come out September 15th, even though the coverage goes into effect October 1st.
>> and again, this will be a selection that employees can make as they go through open enrollment.
>> move approval of a and b.
>> second.
>> discussion? And again, this is for employees --
>> i've got one question.
>> employees have to pay for it themselves. They make a selection. We're trying to facilitate that basically.
>> that's right.
>> Commissioner?
>> thank you, judge. You just said something that got my attention, and that was that the deduction from the payroll of employees paychecks would be September 15th, which is prior to October 1 when the actual plan goes into effect. Are we paying prior to the service? I don't understand that. You're taking money before the service?
>> we always do, Commissioner, on our health insurance premiums. What is being deducted from your paycheck today is really going to pay for your next month's premium because of the two-week delayed payroll and whatnot, we do the deductions that are happening on September 15th and all of these benefits are for October 1st coverage. It's something we always do, we always deduct before.
>> before the effective date?
>> yes, sir.
>> I believe this will be half the premium on the 15th and the other half on the first, so it's paid in advance, the premium is paid in advance of the effective date.
>> okay. Well, thank you.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes unanimously. Thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 12, 2005 3:46 PM