What is Auto Enrollment & How to Configure it - Knowledge Base | BerniePortal

What is Auto-Enrollment & How to Configure Auto-Enrollment

Auto-Enrollment provides a method for employers to automatically enroll employees in plans at renewal.



  1. When it’s time to close open enrollment, employers can configure auto-enrollment settings by matching each plan and coverage tier from the “Prior Offer” to a plan and coverage tier of the “Current Offer.” 
  2. Once these configurations are set and enrollment is closed, employees who did not log into BerniePortal and make active elections will be auto-enrolled based on the auto-enrollment settings. 

A few terms that are important to understand:
  1. Current Offer: the set of benefits that would be offered to a new hire whose benefits effective date is on or after the renewal date of the renewal group that triggered opened enrollment. 
  2. Prior Offer: the set of benefits that were offered to a new hire whose benefits effective date was before the renewal date of the renewal group that triggered open enrollment. 

Let’s review an example of auto-enrollment:
  1. Jamie is the HR Manager at Acme Company. 
  2. Their renewal is January 1st and Jamie goes to close open enrollment on December 14th. 
  3. She finds that 35 of the 173 employees at Acme Company have not made active elections. 
  4. Even though these employees did not log into BerniePortal and make active elections, Jamie would like to go ahead and close enrollment. 
  5. Jamie can go ahead and close enrollment even though there are employees who have not made active elections. 
  6. When she does so, those employees will be auto-enrolled in pre-selected plans and coverage tiers that she configures before closing enrollment.

How to configure auto-enrollment:
  1. In the “Benefits” then “Open Enrollment” area, use the actions gear drop-down next to the renewal group of plans that are currently in an open status and select “Close enrollment.”
  2. The “Auto-Enrollment” modal will display.
  4. A list of all offered benefit types for that renewal group will appear in the left menu.
  6. For each benefit type, there will be one table per “Prior Offer” plan and each table will have one row per coverage tier that was available for that “Prior Offer” plan.
  8. Use the drop-downs in the “Current Offer” plan and coverage tier column to select which “Current Offer” plan and coverage tier that employees should be auto-enrolled in.
  10. Once you’ve finished configuring the auto-enrollment settings for all benefit types, click “Save Configuration.”
  11. When you click “Save Configuration” a confirmation modal will display. Once you select “Okay” to confirm, open enrollment will be closed and BerniePortal will begin processing your auto-enrollment elections. 
  1. Depending on how many employees need to be auto-enrolled, this could take some time. 
  2. Be aware you will not be able to access other pages within the “Benefits” feature while the auto-enrollments are processing. This is to prevent any disruptions to the auto-enrollment process.
  1. Once “Auto-Enrollment” is complete, you can access the settings you configured at any time by hovering over the action wheel for the renewal set that was auto-enrolled, and selecting “Auto-Enrollment Settings.”

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