After a separation of employment, your former employer is supposed to send you your COBRA notice within 10 days. If you don’t get that by then, reach out to HR and gently remind them of this obligation.
As per the COBRA letter, you should have up to 60 days to elect the COBRA and then another 45 days from the date of election to pay (or not pay) the premium. If you add that together, that’s up to 105 days of “free” coverage (assuming no major claims during the float period).
However, you only have 60 days from the last day of regular coverage to determine if you want to enroll in an individual plan via a Special Enrollment Period.
COBRA can sometimes be a great deal and sometimes it can be quite costly. You owe it to yourself to find out what is the best value, at least for the remainder of the calendar year. Before that 60 day Special Enrollment Period ends contact a health insurance broker to see if there might be better options available in the individual health insurance market.
If you live in Colorado, let us help you evaluate your health insurance plan options available both through the health insurance marketplace and carrier direct to help you find the best coverage at the lowest available price. Our services are completely free and there is no extra cost to use a broker.
Sixty days to elect COBRA coverage may seem like a long time, but looking at alternative coverage is something you want to investigate right away. Otherwise, if there is a major claim or an adverse change in health for a family member you may be forced to keep (and pay for) the COBRA health insurance coverage.
If you do elect COBRA coverage within the 60 day COBRA election period, you then have 45 days from that point to pay the back premium, which may be a fairly sizable chunk of money. So, if you maxed out the 60 day election period plus the 45 day payment period, you could actually go 105 days without paying for the coverage. HOWEVER, before you decide to roll those dice, if a family member has an unexpected illness or injury don’t forget that you’ll have to pay ALL the back premiums for COBRA if you want your insurance to pay for it.
Depending on the severity of the claim you then may be effectively locked into COBRA for a longer period of time, as that unforeseen illness or injury may negate your or a family member’s ability to medically qualify for a lower cost individual health insurance plan. This is because individual and family health insurance plans are medically underwritten, which is one of the reasons they are typically much less expensive than COBRA health insurance coverage.
A more prudent and conservative approach would be to apply for a lower cost individual or family health insurance plan right away, but at the end of the day the choice is yours to make.