COBRA Election (as an employee)

When electing COBRA coverage (or PA mini COBRA), you have up to 60 days from WHEN YOU RECEIVE the notice to elect coverage.  Let’s say hypothetically you have a new job and you are able to enroll into coverage on the first of the month after 30 days.  You can NOT elect COBRA and just wait to enroll into your new employer’s coverage. IF something happens where you need the COBRA health insurance coverage, you can ago back and sign up since you are still in the 60 day window.

Let’s say you are eligible to enroll in your new company’s health insurance after 90 days.  This would be OUTSIDE of the 60 day COBRA election window.  HOWEVER, remember, it is 60 days from when you recieve the notice!  Let’s say you recieve the COBRA notice AFTER you have been with your new company for 1 month.  Then the same situation as the above scenario applies… You can just sign up for COBRA IF something happens.

If requested we can try to delay WHEN we send our COBRA notice in order to accomodate more time to elect coverage.  By law, the potential MAXIMUM time that is available to send a COBRA notice is 44 days.