The State of Colorado has special rules in place for continuation coverage for small employers with 2-50 employees. These rules broaden the rules written under The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Since employers with less than 20 employees are exempt from federal COBRA regulations, small group continuation is provided for under state statute. Business Groups of One, while considered to be group insurance plans, operate under different rules and fall outside the general parameters of HIPAA.

If you offer a group health, dental, or vision plan to your employees and you have had less than 20 full and part time employees on at least 50% of the typical business days in the preceding calendar year, you must make continuation and conversion information available to your employees who have had a qualifying event occur within TEN DAYS of loss of coverage. The employee must have been insured under your plan, or any plan that was replaced, for six months for continuation rules to apply. Employees are eligible to convert a group health plan to an individual plan from the group health insurer after just 90 days of coverage. (Note: different states have different rules for non-COBRA eligible beneficiaries)

Remember that time frames are exact. The employee must receive notification properly, in a valid form, in order to elect coverage within the 30 day time frame. Failure to provide legal notice of these rights extends the election period to 60 days. Employees could also consider a short term medical plan.

We provide continuation notification free to our clients. For more information, send us an email using the link below.

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