When an employee has a qualifying life event, employers and Feature Admins can unlock that employee in BerniePortal so they can change benefit elections. Qualifying Event is for life events such as:
- Marriage
- New baby
- Court order
- Loss of other coverage
- Divorce
- Other
When not to use:
- Do not use Qualifying Event to correct an employee election mistake. If the plan is still within the 30-day plan effective-date window, use Correct Mistake instead.
- Do not use Qualifying Event to fix a wrong offering or subgroup, or to apply offer configuration changes (such as adding a new benefit to the offer). Use Change subgroup to force reset the Benefits subgroup instead: How to Force Reset Benefits Subgroup.
Who this is for
Employers and Feature Admins can open Qualifying event when Benefits is enabled for the employer and the employee is eligible (for example, the employee is not terminated, is not already unlocked for a Qualifying Event or Correct Mistake, and is not in a Benefits None subgroup).
To open Qualifying Event:
- Select Employees in the top navigation.
- Find the employee, open the action wheel, and select Qualifying event.
- In the Qualifying Event popup, under For which benefit types do you want to enable changes?, select the benefit types to unlock, or select All (recommended).
- Optionally select Require Documentation of Qualifying Event if the employee must upload supporting documentation before enrollment. Uploaded files are stored in the employee's Personnel File.
- Select Submit.
After you submit, you return to the employee list. The employee shows as Awaiting elections.
When the employee starts enrollment, they enter the qualifying event reason and date. If you required documentation, they upload supporting files before enrollment begins.
Off-Renewal employees:
For employees with Off-Renewal status, the Qualifying Event popup asks you to confirm unlocking the employee. It does not show benefit type checkboxes. Optionally select Require Documentation of Qualifying Event, then select Submit.
Prior Offer and Current Offer:
Depending on the qualifying event date and the subgroup's offers, the employee may complete Prior Offer enrollment and then Current Offer enrollment. Learn more: