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The Department of Labor's Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) has
information for veterans, National Guard, or reservists who may be
activated for military service. National Guard and reserve
members called to active duty and their civilian employers have
certain rights and responsibilities under the Uniformed Services
Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).
VETS has developed a fact sheet and an interactive computer program,
the USERRA Advisor, which address the rights and responsibilities of
individuals and their employers under the law. These tools and
other USERRA information can be found on the VETS
Web site.
If you are on active duty for more than 30 days, you and your
dependents should be covered by military health care. For more information on
these programs contact your military unit.
In addition, two laws protect your right to
continue health coverage under an employment-based group health plan.
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) provides
health coverage continuation rights to employees and their families
after an event such as a reduction in employment hours. USERRA is
intended to minimize the disadvantages that occur when a person needs
to be absent from civilian employment to serve in the uniformed
services.
Both COBRA and USERRA generally allow individuals
who leave work for military service to continue coverage for
themselves and their dependents under an employment-based group health
plan. COBRA provides for 18 months of coverage, with further
extensions for certain events. COBRA applies to group health
plans maintained by employers with 20 or more employees. USERRA,
which applies to all employers, provides for 24 months of
coverage. If military service is for 30 or fewer days, you and
your family can continue coverage at the same cost as before your
short service. If military service is longer, you and you family
may be required to pay as much as 102 percent of the full premium for
coverage. If your plan is covered by COBRA, you should receive a
notice from the plan explaining your rights.
Finally, another law known as the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA) may give you and your family rights to
enroll in other group health plan coverage if it is available to you
(for example, if your spouse's employer sponsors a group health
plan). You and your family have this opportunity to enroll
regardless of the plan's otherwise applicable enrollment periods.
However, to qualify, you must request enrollment in the other plan
(for example, your spouse's plan) within 30 days of losing
eligibility for coverage under your employer's plan. After
special enrollment is requested, coverage is required to be made
effective no later than the first day of the first month following
your request for enrollment. If you are on active duty more
than 30 days, coverage in another plan through special enrollment is
often cheaper than continuation coverage because the employer often
pays a part of the premium.
Note:
When considering your health coverage options, you should examine
the scope of the coverage (including benefit coverage and
limitations, visit limits, and dollar limits), premiums,
cost-sharing (including co-payments and deductibles), and waiting
periods for coverage.
Yes. You and each of your dependents have a separate,
individual right to elect continuation coverage.
Yes. COBRA continuation coverage cannot be terminated because
a reservist receives health coverage as an active duty member of the
uniformed services and a reservist's family receives health coverage
under a government program such as TRICARE.
Under USERRA, you and your family should be able to reenter your
employer's health plan. In addition, your plan generally
cannot impose a waiting period or other exclusion period if health
coverage would have been provided were it not for military service.
The only exception to USERRA's prohibition of exclusions is for an
illness or injury determined by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to
have been incurred in or aggravated during performance of service
in the uniformed services, which is covered by the military health
plan.
For more information on your health benefits rights and options, and
the interaction of COBRA and HIPAA you can find the following publications on our
Web site:
You may also
call EBSA's Toll-Free Employee & Employer
Hotline number at 1.866.444.EBSA (3272) to request one or more
copies of the publications or to speak with a benefits advisor. You may also contact EBSA electronically at www.askebsa.dol.gov.
Additional
health information for military personnel and their families is also
available at:
For information on USERRA, contact the Department of Labor's Veterans'
Employment and Training Service (VETS) office nearest you. You
can also visit the USERRA Employee/Employer Advisor on the
Internet. This interactive program has been designed to
answer questions about the rights and responsibilities for both
employees and employers.
No. USERRA requires
that the period of military duty be counted as covered service with
the employer for eligibility, vesting, and benefit accrual
purposes. Returning service members are treated as if they had
been continuously employed regardless of the type of retirement plan
the employer has adopted. However, a person who is reemployed is
entitled to accrued benefits resulting from employee contributions
only to the extent that he or she actually makes the contributions to
the plan.
There is no requirement for your employer to make
contributions to your 401(k) plan while you are on active duty. However, once you return from military duty and are reemployed, your employer must make the employer contributions that
would have been made if you had been employed during the period of
military duty. If employee contributions are required or
permitted under the plan, the employee has a period equal to three
times the period of military duty or five years, whichever ends first,
to make up the contributions. If the employee makes up the
contributions, the employer must make up any matching contributions.
There is no requirement that the
employer contributions include earnings or forteitures that would have
been allocated to the employee had the contributions been made during
their military service.
The terms of the plan would generally govern this situation. However,
if some employees are permitted to designate individuals to act on
their behalf in other contexts when they are away from work, the
employer should permit the service member to designate someone to
act on his or her behalf.
The Thrift
Savings Plan Web site provides information about the benefits available to TSP
participants. Members of the uniformed services will
participate under most of the same rules and receive the same
benefits as civilian TSP participants. However, the
contribution rules are different for uniformed services members.
Because the TSP record keeper must maintain separate accounts for civilian
and uniformed services participants, participants who are both
Federal civilian employees and uniformed services members (i.e.,
reservists) may have two separate accounts. If you have two
accounts, you will need to review information about your accounts
separately in the civilian and the uniformed services sections of
this Web site.
A booklet entitled “Summary of the Thrift Savings Plan” is available on the TSP Web site.
Yes. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), creditors, including a pension plan, are required to drop interest rates down to no more than 6 percent on debt owed by those entering military service for the period of such military service. Further, under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the loan will not fail to be a qualified loan under ERISA solely because the interest rate is capped by SCRA. Under SCRA, a plan fiduciary could petition a court to retain a higher rate based upon the individual's ability to pay. Under USERRA, a plan may, but is not required to, suspend the obligation to make regular loan repayments to the plan during the period of active military service.
A plan fiduciary could petition a court to retain a higher rate based
upon the individual's ability to pay. Absent an order from the court, however, the plan fiduciary
would be obligated to reduce the interest rate.
For more information about retirement benefits, you may
obtain copies of the publications mentioned by calling the EBSA toll-free
number at 1.866.444.EBSA (3272) or visiting EBSA’s Web site at www.dol.gov/ebsa.
If you have questions, you can call the toll-free number or contact EBSA
electronically at www.askebsa.dol.gov. For tax-related questions,
visit the Internal Revenue Service Web site at www.irs.gov/retirement and
look under EP FAQs.
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