What is an Off-Renewal Implementation?
An Off-Renewal Implementation occurs when an employer implements BerniePortal's benefits feature with the expectation of using it for new hire, qualified event, and termination events for several months before using it for open enrollment.
When to do an Off-Renewal Implementation
You would do an Off-Renewal Implementation any time you don't want to wait for your next open enrollment to begin using BerniePortal's benefits feature for new hire, qualifying event, and termination events.
How to Execute an Off-Renewal Implementation
Executing an off-renewal implementation is easy. After you've worked with BerniePortal's Operations Team to build out the employer's benefits package, take the following steps:
- Enable Open Enrollment
- Enroll the employee whose account was created when the employer's account was activated. This is generally the HR person at the employer who signs the MSA to activate the account. Use this enrollment to ensure the benefits are configured correctly.
- Mark Open Enrollment as "closed."
- Upload the census spreadsheet containing all of the employees' benefit elections. Leave off the employee whom you actively enrolled in Step 2 above. Note: it is critical that you do not upload the census until after open enrollment is marked as closed.
BerniePortal's Operations Team can help you with these steps on your build-out review call.
The employees you upload will appear in the Employee List in the status called "Off-Renewal." From that status, you can unlock their accounts for them to execute a qualifying event and you can also terminate them.
There is a dedicated standard report for employees who have been added off-review this way called "Off-Renewal Employees."
A Few Items to Note
Employers who execute an Off-Renewal Implementation cannot utilize BerniePortal's Carrier Exchange or Carrier Billing solutions until the first open enrollment, where the employees make active elections in BerniePortal. This gives the employer and their broker time to focus on making the experience using the system itself great (versus trying to add integrations and/or carrier billing solutions at the same time). During this time period, eligibility changes can be handled utilizing BerniePortal's Election PDFs, Carrier Forms, and email notifications.
Until they have made active elections, an employee in the "Off-Renewal" status will only appear on the "Off-Renewal Employees" report. This means that to create a complete census for quoting purposes at open enrollment, you will just combine the "Off-Renewal Employees" report with the "All Data" report.