Tips for Shared Family Enrollment

If you and your spouse or qualified domestic partner are both in benefit eligible positions at the College and have dependent children, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind when making your elections for Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) and Dependent Life Insurance.
According to the rules of both plans, "no person may be covered both as an employee and a dependent and no person may be covered as a dependent of more than one employee." Thus, if you are in a shared family situation, options for AD&D coverage would include:

1. One of you could elect family coverage under the AD&D plan and the other would decline the coverage. This would mean that the employee who is not opting for the insurance would be covered as a dependent under the family plan.
2. You could both elect employee only coverage and opt not to cover any children under the AD&D plan.
3. One of you could elect employee only AD&D coverage and the other could elect family coverage; however, in this instance, only yourself and children would be covered under your plan. Your spouse or qualified domestic partner would be covered under the employee only coverage they elected.
4. You could both opt out of the AD&D coverage.

Options for Dependent Life Insurance coverage would include:

1. One employee could elect dependent life coverage and the other would decline coverage. It is important to understand that in this situation, the spouse or qualified domestic partner who has not elected dependent life insurance is not covered under your plan since they are covered as an employee under the Life Insurance plan. You would have coverage for your children only in this case.
2. You could both opt out of the Dependent Life coverage.

Information on the Streamlining Process for Flexible Spending Account(s):

1. The streamlining process is turned off if you are enrolled in the POS-II Plan as a shared family and have flexible spending account(s).  Therefore, FSA claims must be submitted manually to Aetna.  (This applies to both primary and secondary accounts.)
2. You may contact Aetna after January 1 of the plan year and have this option turned on.  However, please read below for the implications and functionality of the streamlining process for your Flexible Spending Account(s):
   1. Streamline is connected to the Primary Medical account in a shared family situation.  Even if the Secondary participant (spouse) also has an FSA, their claims/co-pays will post against the Primary FSA automatically.
   2. If there are two FSA accounts, and the Primary FSA balance has been exhausted for the year, any future claims/co-pays to the Secondary FSA must be submitted manually.  The Secondary FSA will not have the claims posted against it automatically by Aetna.