How do I find out about COBRA coverage?

Group health plans must provide covered employees and their families with certain notices explaining their COBRA rights. Your COBRA rights must be described in the plan's Summary Plan Description (SPD), which you should receive within 90 days after you first become a participant in the plan. In addition, group health plans must give each employee and spouse who becomes covered under the plan a general notice describing COBRA rights, also provided within the first 90 days of coverage.

Before a group health plan must offer continuation coverage, a qualifying event must occur, and the plan must be notified of the qualifying event. Who must give notice of the qualifying event depends on the type of qualifying event.

The employer must notify the plan if the qualifying event is the covered employee's termination or reduction of hours of employment, death, entitlement to Medicare, or bankruptcy of a private-sector employer. The employer must notify the plan within 30 days of the event.

You (the covered employee or one of the qualified beneficiaries) must notify the plan if the qualifying event is divorce, legal separation, or a child's loss of dependent status under the plan. The plan must have procedures 4 for how to give notice of the qualifying event, and the procedures should be described in both the general notice and the plan's SPD. The plan can set a time limit for providing this notice, but it cannot be shorter than 60 days, starting from the latest of: (1) the date on which the qualifying event occurs; (2) the date on which you lose (or would lose) coverage under the plan due to the qualifying event; or (3) the date on which you are informed, through the furnishing of either the SPD or the COBRA general notice, of the responsibility to notify the plan and procedures for doing so.

If your plan does not have reasonable procedures for how to give notice of a qualifying event, you can give notice by contacting the person or unit that handles your employer's employee benefits matters. If your plan is a multiemployer plan, notice can also be given to the joint board of trustees, and, if the plan is administered by an insurance company (or the benefits are provided through insurance), notice can be given to the insurance company.

When the plan receives a notice of a qualifying event, it must give the qualified beneficiaries an election notice which describes their rights to continuation coverage and how to make an election. This notice must be provided within 14 days after the plan receives notice of the qualifying event.