Benefits General Information – An Overview

Benefits General Information forms the top tier of the Benefits Process. Defining Benefits General Information is the main prerequisite for defining Benefit Program, Plan and Plan type.  The following activities comprise this component,

• Creating a Benefit Association

• Creating a Benefit Year

• Creating a collective bargaining agreement information

• Creating a family coverage category

• Creating a postal service area

• Creating a premium period

• Maintaining  a rate table

• Creating a provider information

• Editing a benefit year

• Editing a family coverage category

• Editing a postal service area

• Editing a premium period

• Editing provider information

• Viewing a benefit association

• View benefit year

• View a family coverage category

• Viewing a premium period

• Viewing benefit provider information

• View collective bargaining details

• Viewing postal service area

Creating a Benefit Association

This activity enables you to group employees on a certain common criteria and create a benefit association. These associations can be created on the basis of grade set, grade, job, place of work, union employment unit etc.

Creating a Benefit Year

This activity enables the user to define a benefit year for an organization unit. A Benefit year can be created in 2 ways,

1. Calendar year

2. Fiscal year

A Calendar year indicates that the benefit year begins with 1st of January and ends with 31st of December of a year. Fiscal year indicates that the benefit year can have any start date and end date.

Creating a collective bargaining agreement information

Collective bargaining is an agreement between the management and various unions to avail special rates and other benefits for its members. Through this activity, you can record various bargaining agreement details based on which employees will be eligible to avail various benefits.

Creating a family coverage category

Through this activity, you can create different family coverage categories. Family Coverage indicates the number of members of the family who can be covered under a benefit plan.  You can define a coverage category by specifying the type of relationships that will be covered. You are to specify the maximum number of dependents that can be covered.

Creating a postal service area

Through this activity, you can define a postal service area. Creating a postal service area requires you to specify a unique code to identify the postal service area, accompanied by a short and a long description.

Creating a premium period

Through this activity, you can define premium periods for a specified benefit year. Creating a premium period is a prerequisite for processing of premiums of various plans. Premium Period is the interval of time for which premiums of various plans are processed.

Maintaining a rate table

Through this activity, you can create and modify a rate table based on which the employer or the employee contributes the premium amount.  The premium rate is based on various factors like the age, service months, group, union affiliation and smoker/non smoker status.

Creating a provider information

Through this activity, you can record information about the providers that offer various benefit plans to the employees.

Editing a benefit year

Through this activity, you can modify all the details of an existing benefit year record. To modify a benefit year record, you are to specify the search criteria, based on which the system will fetch the benefit year records.

Editing a family coverage category

Through this activity, you can modify all the details of an existing family coverage category. Family Coverage indicates the number of members of the family who can be covered.  You can define a coverage category by specifying the type of relationships that will be covered. You are to specify the maximum number of dependents or relationships that can be covered.

Editing a postal service area

Through this activity, you can modify all the details of an existing postal service area. Apart from modifying the record, you can also delete the record.

Editing a premium period

Through this activity, you can modify all the details of an existing premium period record. Apart from modifying the record, you can also delete the record.

Editing provider information

Through this activity, you can modify or delete the details of a benefit provider record. To modify or delete a benefit provider record, you must specify the search criteria, based on which the system will fetch the benefit provider records.

Viewing a benefit association

Through this activity, you can view all the details of an existing benefit association record. Benefit association is grouping of employees on a certain common criteria. These associations can be formed on the basis of grade set, grade, job, place of work, union employment unit etc.

Viewing benefit year

A Benefit year is the period for which the Benefits are computed and paid. Through this activity, you can view all the details of the various Benefit years that have been created for the Benefit General Information unit. To view a benefit year record, you are to specify the search criteria, based on which the system will fetch the benefit year records.

View a family coverage category

Through this activity, you can view all the details of an existing family coverage category record. Family Coverage indicates the number of members of the family who can be covered.

Viewing a premium period

Through this activity, you can view the various premium periods defined for a particular benefit year and premium frequency.  Benefit year is the period for which the Benefits are computed and paid. Premium frequency is the interval of time at which the premiums are processed. They can be weekly, monthly, yearly etc.

Viewing benefit provider information

Through this activity, you can view the details of a benefit provider record. To view details of a benefit provider record, you must specify the search criteria, based on which the system will fetch the benefit provider records.

View collective bargaining details

Through this activity, you can view all the details of an existing collective bargaining details record. To view a collective bargaining details record, you are to specify the search criteria, based on which the system will fetch the collective bargaining details records.

Viewing postal service area

Through this activity, you can view the details of postal service area that has been created already. You can view the following details of the postal service area.

• The code and the descriptions of the postal service area

• The various zip codes that come under the selected postal service area.

Getting familiar with the pages inside