New Employee Benefit Short Term Disability

New Employee Benefit

Short Term Disability

8-11-2016 (updated 8-16-2016)

Holly Nelson, Sr. Account Specialist, Standard Insurance Company Becky Goins, Director of Employee Benefits, UAMS Human Resources Brad Loften, Senior Benefits Consultant, UAMS Human Resources

How did we get here?

Over a year ago, began to explore ways to replace catastrophic leave program with a fully insured short term disability insurance plan.

Goals:

? Provide a benefit to a larger number of employees than cat leave

? Without increasing UAMS cost ? And provide a benefit that employees have requested

for years

First, a review of Cat Leave

? Rules are set by the State and are fairly stringent, subject to decisions of campus committee

? Eligible recipients must be off at least 6 weeks and have worked at UAMS for at least 2 years

? Cat leave is reserved for non-faculty employees for life threatening illness

? Employees "donate" unused sick time (primarily sick leave they lose anyway when leaving UAMS)

? Use of cat leave represents an added and unbudgeted cost to departments since there are no real dollars attached to donations

? Average of 100 employees are awarded cat leave annually at cost of $1.2 mil.

Transition from cat leave to STD

? Current cat leave recipients as of Aug 31 will continue, being phased out

? No new cat leave applications for medical absences beginning Sept 1 or later

? Cat leave donations end

NEW Short Term Disability

+ Projected to pay benefits to 500 employees per year, 5 x that of cat leave + Faculty are eligible + Will cover illnesses that don't meet "catastrophic" criteria, including

maternity + Makes us more competitive with local hospitals that offer short term

disability

- STD doesn't replace 100% of salary that cat leave provided - STD only covers the employee's illness. Loss of benefit for ~ 25 employees

each year who use cat leave for spouse/child's serious illness - 12 weeks max STD benefit may not be enough to cover gap before Long

Term Disability kicks in

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