What Is Covered Under COBRA Regulations?

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) ensures that people leaving their jobs for a specific event have continued access to group health insurance. COBRA ensures that you don't lose your health care insurance if you become unemployed but the coverage can be costly. COBRA regulations have specific rules about who can be covered and for how long.

Who is Covered

• To be covered by COBRA, you must have been enrolled in a group health insurance plan at the time of your termination. You are covered only if you lost your job for specific events, which include voluntary or involuntary termination for any reason other than gross misconduct like stealing, sexual harassment or selling trade secrets. You are also eligible for COBRA if you lost your health insurance due to a reduction in the number of hours worked.

What COBRA Coverage is

• For COBRA coverage to take effect, your employer must have had 20 or more employees enrolled in the plan at the time you lost your job. COBRA covers continuing group health insurance benefits for workers from the private sector, state or local governments and employee organizations. The health care plan that you were enrolled in before you lost your job continues, although you have to pay the full price of the premium.

Length of Coverage

• In general, you are eligible for COBRA coverage for 18 months from the time you left employment. However, you can get up to 11 additional months of coverage for you and your family if you meet additional requirements. To meet those requirements, you must have a ruling from the Social Security Administration that you became disabled within 60 days of your COBRA coverage starting. You must send your health insurance plan provider a copy of the Social Security ruling letter no later than 60 days after you receive it.

What Benefits Are Covered?

• Federal law mandates that if you are covered under COBRA, you must be offered a health insurance policy identical to the one that non-COBRA beneficiaries are offered. If active employees are offered a new health insurance plan, non-active COBRA beneficiaries are offered the same plan. In other words, you get to keep the same benefits unless your employer decides to switch plans to another provider -- in which case everyone covered under the old plan switches to a new one.