Does anyone know when your former employer is supposed to give you information on COBRA coverage?

Part of my separation package I negotiated was that I would be covered with medical, vision and dental insurance through 12/31/08. After that I will be able to obtain COBRA....but I have no information on it nor do I have the cost. I already know it's probably going to be too much but I'd still like to know what my options are.

Is anyone familiar with this? Thanks!!

Do they have a HR dept?
They should be able to give you all the info on it.

It is a huge amount of $$$
For just myself Cobra would have been about 230.00 a month in 04.

My company did also give me a letter confirming continuous medical coverage ?? -or something like that -so that if I needed it for a new ins carrier that was supposed to be of help.

Kelly by law I am pretty sure they need to give you the information within 30 days. I would call your HR or someone from there to double check.

They should be sending you a packet that tells you how much. My mom is on Cobra because TN requires you to exhaust any and all insurance before they help with state assistance. I called and that's what I was told.

My mom pays $378 a month for her Cobra. Thank God she'll be Medicare eligible next May! She's in income based housing so she can afford to pay the Cobra. It's a private building and very nice. My grandma lived there.

When I was employed, my insurance, for just me, cost $110 per month. My insurance expires Sept. 30 (I worked for a school district, so it continues through the summer.)

COBRA would be $385 per month, beginning Sept 30. Because I have my DH's insurance as secondary coverage, I plan to just utilize that as my primary insurance, since my deductibles for the year have been met.

I think you need to sign up prior to your insurance expiring. I agree with other advice to contact someone. In my case, it is the business office that takes care of this -- not HR.

~ Faith

contact your HR office.
better yet go there in person.
don't leave til you get the info.
you have a right to this. don't wait for them to act in your behalf.

be your own advocate.

i did cobra til my ssdi came thru.
it was expensive but still worth it for me.

I figured out how much COBRA would cost me by looking at my 2007 W2 form from my employer. It listed the cost to my employer for my insurance under "cafeteria plan". I added my share (weekly payment x 52), added in the 2% they are legally allowed to charge you for administrative fees. and came up with a total.

It was a LOT of money.

There's a great article in Money magazine about insurance this month. It features a man who's retiring younger and is thinking about forgoing insurance because of the cost. The general consesus was that he couldn't afford to be without it until Medicare kicked in. One major sickness (surgery, cancer, etc) could easily bankrupt a person. They recommended he do the COBRA for 18 months but gave a number of other options for coverage instead of or when COBRA ran out. Some were just catastrophic coverage which may be all you really need. They also had a lot of resources. I would definitely check by your local library for it.

I'm fairly risk averse when it comes to health stuff so maintaining insurance coverage has always been important to me.

Hope that helps!

:ditto: ITA