How You Define Waiting Periods for Eligibility

A waiting period enables you to determine how long a participant needs to wait before they're eligible for a benefit.

For example, you want participants to wait until they finish 500 hours at work to be eligible for a benefit. You can define a waiting period in the Waiting Period section of the Eligibility step when you create or edit a plan or program.

You can also define a maximum waiting period in the Additional Configuration step. Suppose you defined a maximum waiting period waiting period of 6 months. You already defined a waiting period of 500 hours in the Eligibility step. If the participant works for 6 months, they would still be eligible for the plan even though they might not have worked for 500 hours. That means the maximum waiting period overrides the waiting period that you set at the eligibility level.