Open Enrollment is your annual opportunity to update or choose the benefit options that best meet your and your family’s needs. During Open Enrollment, there are several programs you can elect, make changes to, or waive:
- Medical, dental and vision insurance;
- Accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance;
- Health care flexible spending accounts, which reimburse medical expenses for you and your dependents; and
- Dependent day care flexible spending accounts, which reimburse day care service expenses for your dependents.
You can make changes to other benefit programs anytime, including during Open Enrollment. These include:
- Life insurance and enhanced short-term disability and long-term disability insurance, which can be managed through My VU Benefits;
- Retirement plan contributions and investments, which can be managed through Fidelity’s NetBenefits; and
- Discounted pet, auto and home insurance, which are managed directly with the providers.
Tobacco-free status
Continue saving $20 per month on your health plan premiums if you and your covered family members are committed to being tobacco-free. Just indicate your tobacco usage status when completing enrollment in My VU Benefits. If you pledged to quit last year, but are still using tobacco, you will not receive the credit in 2016.
Spouse/partner coverage
If you elect or keep spouse/same-sex domestic partner coverage, indicate whether your spouse or partner has access to insurance through another employer. Spouses or partners who have access to health coverage through an outside employer but prefer the Vanderbilt plan will pay an additional $100 per month in payroll premiums. The fee will be applied if you don’t complete Open Enrollment.
Because same-sex marriages are now performed and legal in all U.S. states, married same-sex couples are eligible for the same benefits and tax advantages as other married couples. We will continue to offer unmarried same-sex domestic partners and their children access to Vanderbilt benefit programs, including insurance plans and tuition assistance, in 2016. However, only spouses and natural, step- or adopted children will be eligible starting in 2017.
FSAs
If you fund flexible spending accounts (FSAs) for health care or dependent day care expenses, you must re-enroll every year. You will have until March 15, 2017, to use funds deposited in your FSA during 2016. Unused funds are forfeited, so choose your amounts wisely.
Update beneficiaries
Review or update life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance beneficiaries as well as retirement beneficiaries, even if you have done so before. You should verify that the names and allocations for each beneficiary of these policies are correct. Beneficiaries are not necessarily the dependents on your health plan and need to be separately named.
Need help? Attend an Enrollment Lab
- Oct. 27, 8:30-11 a.m., Sarratt Student Center, Room 216/220
- Oct. 28, 1-4 p.m., Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital (VCH), Room B319
Looking for more information? Sign up for the last Open Enrollment webinar
- Oct. 28, 4-5 p.m.
Click here to register.
Open Enrollment is happening now and ends at 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 30. Elections are effective Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 2016, unless you have a qualifying event such as marriage, divorce or the birth of a child.
Visit hr.vanderbilt.edu/oe for more information.