Section 9501 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (“ARPA”) requires employers, insurers and multiemployer trustees (collectively, “plan administrators”) to provide a 100% subsidy for COBRA health care continuation coverage (including under states’ mini-COBRA laws) to “assistance eligible individuals” (“AEIs”) for the period from April 1 through Sept. 30, 2021.
Among its various notice requirements, ARPA requires plan administrators to give advance notice to AEIs when their ARPA COBRA subsidy period is coming to an end (the “expiration notice”). The expiration notice must be sent to AEIs not earlier than 45 days, and not later than 15 days, before the expiration date of the AEI’s subsidy period. Now that Sept. 30, 2021—the last day of the subsidy period—is in sight, plan administrators should be preparing to send out the final round of these expiration notices to AEIs. The last day on which these expiration notices should be sent is Sept. 15, 2021.
The expiration notice must be written in clear and understandable language to communicate that: (1) the ARPA COBRA subsidy for such individual will expire soon and the prominent identification of the date of such expiration and (2) such individual may be eligible for coverage without any subsidy through COBRA continuation coverage or coverage under a group health plan. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) prepared a model expiration notice in English and Spanish.
How We Can Help
For more information about the ARPA COBRA premium assistance, see our prior client alerts:
Please contact one of us or your regular Brownstein attorney for answers to your questions about the ARPA COBRA subsidy or any other benefits and executive compensation questions you may have.
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