As you begin your Open/Annual Enrollment process, it is very important to identify changes in your current benefits package. By reviewing your current package details and identifying changes, you will be able to better organize yourself in making updates for the upcoming open enrollment period.

Table of Contents

• Sample Timeline
• Prior to Open Enrollment Configuration
  • Important Questions to Ask
  • Important Items to Review
• Recommended Steps for Open Enrollment Configuration

Sample Timeline

To better prepare for your Open Enrollment, it can help to establish a timeline in your organization to set expectations for the necessary parties on time frames and deadlines.

Communication Strategy

To help you effectively communicate with your employees during the lead-up to and during your Open Enrollment, we have created a variety of email templates and outlined when they should be sent.

Prior to Open Enrollment Configuration

During your preparations for Open Enrollment, you will need to review your existing benefit information and double-check your existing employees, new hires, and terminations. We have provided a number of articles below that should help you:

• Helpful Reports to Review Prior to Open Enrollment
• Processing New Employees and Terminated Employees Prior to Open Enrollment
• Clearing Alerts for Open Enrollment

Important Questions to Ask

Here is a list of common important questions to ask before open enrollment to identify action items or changes needed:

• What Benefits will be included in the Open Enrollment Event?
• Will benefits have passive (prior elections will be carried over automatically) or active (employees must reenroll) enrollment?
  • Active enrollment is recommended when there are major benefit/carrier changes or contribution-based benefits.
• What are your plan year dates, the open enrollment window, and will there be any pay date exclusions (i.e., a 53rd check date on a weekly pay schedule, where you are only deducting 52 times a year)?
  • Those with a payroll integration, such as with Sage or Vista, confirm integration details and check for any deductions or fringe IDs and liabilities, especially if new benefits will be added.
• If your benefits have Primary Care Physician data, will the data be carried over from the previous year, or will it be reset for the new year?
• Do you have Carrier Changes for the upcoming benefits package?
  • If so, you will need new carrier contact info (Carrier Name, Contact Name, Phone, Email)
• Are you adding benefits? Are you adding plans?
• Are there any significant plan changes?
• Which plans will have premium changes?
• Will you have compensation updates on or before the start of the new package?
  • If so, a compensation import/update will need to be completed prior to Creating Benefit Records.
• Which employees will be eligible for annual enrollment?

Important Items to Review

Important items to review for accuracy in your Benefit Structure to make sure the settings in the system are correct before Open Enrollment:

• Package & Benefit Cycles (date ranges)
• Package, Benefit & Plan Eligibility Rules
• Package & Benefit Waiting Period Rules
• Annual Rates for regular and age banded benefits that are not changing
• Evidence of Insurability Rules
• Age Reductions
• Cap amounts for compensation-based benefits
• Benefit Dependencies
• Minimum and Maximum amounts for contribution-based benefits
• Dependent Age-out rules set for plans

Recommended Steps for Open Enrollment Configuration

The steps identified below are meant to serve as a checklist for configuring your upcoming package for Open Enrollment. While some steps may not be necessary or may not cover all needs for your organization, they should help a majority of situations.

A majority of articles will also offer a link to a related video from our Arcoro Learning page. You can see all of the videos focusing on Annual Enrollment on the Arcoro Learning page here.

1. Update Pay Schedules
   • Hard Coding Pay Periods & Pay Date Exclusions
2. Create a New Benefit Package by Duplicating the Previous
3. Update Carrier Information
4. Create a  New Rollover Mapping
5. Review, Update, and/or Add Benefits/Plans
6. Updating Benefit Plan Premiums
7. Updating Eligibility Rules
8. Cancelling Benefit Plans
9. Add New Benefits/Plans (Creating Voluntary Life Benefit Plan as an Example)
10. Review Evidence of Insurability (EOI) Rules
    • Review Evidence of Insurability (EOI) Rules for LTD/STD Benefits
11. Update Employee Compensation with Import Template
12. Reviewing and Updating Open Enrollment Event Settings
13. Configure Benefit Enrollment Screens
14. Create Benefit Records with Plan Utilities
15. Recalculating Benefit Costs
16. Testing Open Enrollment Event
17. Creating an Open Enrollment Window for Eligible Employees
18. Update Enrollment Window for New Hires
19. Open Enrollment Event Monitoring and Reports