(USF) Enrolling Employees in Benefit Programs and Plans

BAS Group ID (benefits administration group identification)

Applies only if your benefits system uses Benefits Administration. Use it to link the participant to a particular benefits administration group for Benefits Administration processing later.

Benefit Program

Automatically set to the benefits program specified for the employee's pay group, which you specify in the Position Data page.

Permanent

Select this option for employees with a career conditional career appointment. Employees are eligible for FEHB if fields 1−9 in the Eligibility group box are also for users of Benefits Administration. Here you enter eligibility values that refer to eligibility configuration values in the Eligibility Rules Table.

Continuing Coverage

Select this option for employees who are transferring into a position from another agency without a break in service and for rehires with a break in service of fewer than 30 days. Employees are eligible for FEHB.

Temporary Appointment > 1 yr (temporary appointment greater than one year)

Select this option for an employee with a temporary appointment greater than one year. Employees are eligible for FEHB.

Temporary Appointment < 1 yr + FedSvc > 1 yr (temporary appointment less than one year plus federal service greater than one year)

Select this option for an employee with a temporary appointment less than one year and continuous service greater than one year. Employees with this eligibility pay the entire cost of their FEHB coverage.

Not Eligible

Select this option for employees who are ineligible for FEHB plan coverage. This option is most commonly used for employees with a temporary appointment of less than one year of service.

FEGLI Code

Use this field to select the participant's FEGLI (Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance ) plan coverage, including termination, waiving coverage, and coverage ineligibility.

Only active employees are allowed to increase their FEGLI coverage.

You can assign beneficiaries and allocate survivor benefits through the Life and AD/D Benefits - Beneficiaries page.

Post 65 Basic Life Reduction

After federal employees pass the age of 65, their basic life plan coverage may be reduced. In the Post 65 Basic Life Reduction field, determine whether the chosen employee's life plan value will be reduced by 50%, 75%, or not at all.

Living Benefits

Select for terminally ill federal employees and retirees who have a life expectancy of nine months or less. With living benefits, a full or partial payment of the FEGLI Basic Life Insurance benefit is paid directly to the employee or retiree.

When an employee's request for living benefits has been approved by OFEGLI, use the PAR pages to process the election. Select an NOA code of 805 (Elect Full Living Benefit) or 806 (Elect Partial Living Benefit).

When you select Living Benefits to process a partial living benefit, the Coverage Amount field becomes available.

After an employee selects living benefits, the only FEGLI code values available to the employee are Terminate All and Waive All Life Insurance.

Coverage Amount

Used for employees who elect a partial living benefit. In this field, enter the Basic Insurance Amount (BIA). This is the balance of the coverage amount remaining.

Retirement Plan

Select the employee's retirement plan coverage. You can select from an entire list of available U.S. federal government retirement programs that may be available to your employees. Whether your agency actually offers all of these programs depends upon whether you have set them up in the Retirement Plan Table and have associated them with the benefit programs that your agency offers.

FERS Coverage (federal employees retirement system coverage)

Indicate the level of FERS coverage allocated to employees who had federal retirement plan coverage prior to 1984. Employees who had this coverage before 1984 can select from the following values: Elected Coverage Under FERS or Not Covered by FERS.

All employees who started federal retirement coverage after 1984 have a FERS coverage of Automatically Covered by FERS.

Previous Retirement Coverage

Employees transferring from another agency previously covered by a federal benefit plan should select Previously Covered. If the employee was not covered, select Never Covered.

Annuitant Indicator

Use for employees who are being rehired from retirement. If a formerly retired employee is receiving an annuity such as a pension plan payment, his or her pay may be offset by that annuity amount.

Determine whether the retirement annuity is applicable to the employee's wages. Indicate the former employment status of the employee, regardless of whether the employee was a retired enlisted or military officer, and the employee's retirement plan type (CSRS or FERS).

Annuity Commencement Date

The date when retirement annuities for a retired or soon-to-be-retired employee began or will begin. The system uses this date when determining how to calculate agency contributions and employee deductions for FEHB and FEGLI during the employee's last pay period.

CSRS Frozen Service (civil service retirement system frozen service)

Frozen service is the U.S. federal government term for the total years and months of civilian and military service that is creditable in a CSRS component of an FERS employee (retirement plans FERS and FICA, FERS and FICA - Air Traffic Control, FERS and FICA - Special, and FERS and FICA - Reserve Tech), or in the case of a CSRS offset employee (retirement plans FICA + CSRS – Partial and FICA + CSRS Special – Partial), the service that would be covered in a CSRS component if the employee ever became covered by FERS.

In the CSRS Frozen Service field, enter this time span as a four-number code. The first and second positions indicate the number of years, while the third and fourth positions indicate the number of months. For example, a time span of five years and three months would be entered in CSRS Frozen Service as 0503.