Processing Events for COBRA Administration

Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) administration uses Benefits Administration processes to identify and process:

Initial COBRA events, which provide initial COBRA coverage to qualified COBRA participants and their dependents.
Secondary COBRA events, which extend coverage for COBRA participants and their dependents.

The initiation of a COBRA event differs according to your current implementation:

If you are currently working only with the Manage Base Benefits business process, the COBRA event is initiated by online PeopleCode.
With Benefits Administration, the COBRA event is initiated by Benefits Administration when a recognized COBRA action event is finalized.

The only exception to this rule is the Overage Dependent event, which is initiated by the COBRA process for both the Manage Base Benefits business process and Benefits Administration.

This table describes qualified COBRA events delivered by PeopleSoft, actions that trigger Benefits Administration to recognize these events as qualified COBRA events, and potential COBRA beneficiaries of the events:

Qualifying COBRA Event	User Action Trigger	Potential COBRA Beneficiaries
Loss of eligibility due to termination.	Employee status changes to terminated or suspended.	Employee and dependents.
Loss of eligibility due to reduction in hours.	Employee status remains active; standard hours decrease.	Employee and dependents.
Loss of eligibility due to retirement.	Employee status changes to retired.	Employee and dependents.
Loss of eligibility due to military leave.	Leave of Absence/Military Leave action/action reason entered for employee.	Employee and dependents.
Death of employee.	Employee status changes to deceased or FSC/DEA entered as action/reason code in the Job table.	All dependents.
Divorce.	Change in marital status of employee to divorced; change in status of spouse to ex-spouse. Family Status Change/Divorce action/action reason entered for employee.	Spouse.
Marriage of dependent.	Marital status of dependent changes to married. Family Status Change/Married Dependents action/action reason entered for employee.	Individual dependent.
Dependent reaches coverage age limit (overage dependent).	Not identified by Benefits Administration. (Benefits Administration does not automate passage of time events for dependents.) You must run the COBRA process to identify overage dependents.	Individual dependent.
Employee becomes entitled to receive Medicare.	Medicare entitlement date is reached. Family Status Change/Medicare Entitlement action/action reason is entered.	All dependents.