It’s important that plan members’ salaries stay up to date. Plan members can be negatively impacted at the time of a claim if their salaries are not accurate. At minimum, there will be a delay in processing the claim. Worst case scenario is a denial of benefits or a lower-than-expected benefit amount.
- If you have salary driven benefits such as Group Life Insurance, Accident and Serious Illness, or Short- or Long-term disability, a change in earnings may affect the level of benefit your members are entitled to should something unfortunate happen.
- If an earnings change is not reported and a life or disability claim occurs, the insurer may hold the benefit levels as of the members last reported earnings, so it’s important to report annual earnings within 31 days of those changes.
Making salary updates in WEBS
- Annual earnings can be viewed in each member record in ‘List All Enrolled Employees’ in the EE or the employee profile screen.
- All your members on your plan, their annual earnings, and benefit levels can be seen on the billing statement. Find it under Billing Statements and Reports; Billing Statements & Notifications.
Did you know? At every renewal, once your billing statement is generated, WEBS will remind you to review your member data for accuracy. It will also generate an annual salary report spreadsheet and post it on File Service for you to review, update, and upload. Your GroupHEALTH representative will then import the information directly into WEBS.
Examples of missed salary updates
Short-Term Disability (STD)claim
“WEBS says the salary is $43,000 per year. The STD Employer Statement says the salary is $11,000 per year.
We are unable to continue adjudicating this claim until we have confirmation that the employee was working enough hours to remain eligible for the coverage. This plan member stopped working mid-January and didn’t file their STD claim until mid-March. Upon receipt of the claim, we noticed the discrepancy and have been trying to get confirmation from the PA for two weeks. This plan member has been without income since mid-January.”
Long-Term Disability (LTD) claim
“WEBS says the salary is $72,000 per year. The LTD Employer Statement says the salary is $83,000 per year.
Premiums were charged based on the WEBS salary. When the LTD claim was approved, it was paid according to the salary reported in WEBS that premiums were based on. This is a difference of over $600 per month in their payable LTD benefit.”
Life Claim
“WEBS says the salary is $65,000. The Life claim Policy Holder form says the salary is $75,000 per year.
Premiums were charged based on the WEBS salary. When the Life claim was approved, it was paid according to the salary reported in WEBS that premiums were based on. There was a one-month delay in paying the claim because our adjudication team identified the salary discrepancy and worked with the Employer and Service team to collect the missing premiums that would allow the plan member’s family to receive the full $75,000.”
Need help?
If you only have a few salaries to update, a two minute tutorial is available on WEBS in the PA Knowledge Base in the Using WEBS Section.
If you don’t know what earnings to report, please consult your benefit booklet or reach out to your GroupHEALTH Representative.