Just because it is based on the employers group rate, don’t assume COBRA coverage is a great deal. There is an alternative to going without coverage though:
Price health insurance outside of COBRA. If you are healthy and youngish, you may find (as I did, and I’m not all that youngish and have a minor health issue) that you can get OK insurance it costs around half of what you’d pay through COBRA. Employers often select “deluxe” coverage with low deductables & co-pays, and it covers ALL employees, (smokers, women of child bearing age, etc.)so the insurance company can’t cherry pick, so the premiums are often more, even for a group plan, than they might charge an individual in good health.
Of course, if you’re middle-aged and have a spouse that has spina bifida, diabetes, and incipient cardiac issues any private/individual insurance broker will just laugh in your face and name a four-digit monthly premium. With COBRA being $900 a month, which is almost as much as all our other costs combined, there was no way we could maintain health insurance when I was laid off. Yes, health insurance is important, but eating and paying the rent are arguably more important still.
We did, eventually, get on the Healthy Indiana Plan, which is subsidized, but only after going bare half a year and paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket every month for my husband’s medications.
If you belong to any professional societies, check to see if they have a group insurance plan. If my husband and I lost our jobs, we could get insurance through my state bar association cheaper than we could get an individual plan. (I probably couldn’t get an individual plan at all, since I am overweight and have MS.)
I’ve only been layed off once. It was rather abrupt and I didn’t have time to plan. My biggest mistake was underestimating how much time was involved in the search for a new job.
I immediately went to a taxi company and leased a cab so I could keep some cash flowing in. I had driven a taxi throughout college and I figured I could keep the bills paid that way while I job-searched. The problem was, to make a living with a taxi, you had to work about 60 hours a week.
That didn’t leave me much time to find a job. I went to a couple of job fairs, but it was obvious that was leading nowhere with 2000+ other engineers out of work at the same time. So, after a couple of weeks, I turned the taxi back in and made the job search my full-time job. It took me about four weeks to find something.
I wasn’t laid off, but five years ago I quit my job. I wasn’t eligible for unemployment (didn’t even apply) and I thought it’d be easy to find another job, so I cashed in my 401-k and used it as income rather than cut back on expenses. That was dumb. Don’t do that.
When I collected in New York State I just went online and certified every week by ticking maybe half a dozen yes/no questions and that was pretty much that. I was never asked to show my job search record. At least that’s the way it was a couple years ago.
Same as in Washington, except they select a few people at random, and you’re supposed to come in and show them your job search log, and if you don’t have a job search log then you could lose your benefits and be required to pay back the benefits you already got. I don’t know how often they actually call the numbers in your job search log but they keep a copy of it if you get picked for a spot check.
But all you need is three contacts a week. That takes ten minutes online, and if you don’t really want a job you can just apply to jobs that are one or two levels above your experience.
Don’t expect to get your severance immediately - you don’t. At least I didn’t in MN when I was laid off last summer. (However, my severance was pretty small, only two weeks, so maybe it’s different for amounts like that.)
I didn’t know that I’d have to wait for the expiration date on the paperwork they gave me (and that I signed pretty much immediately) before they’d even send my check. Lucky for me, I didn’t need it, but I’m probably an exception - there might be people depending on that severance, and the delay could really hurt them.
Obviously, I don’t know that the rules or general practices are (for all I know, they have to pay you as soon as they received your signed paperwork), but I didn’t get my severance pay for about 6 weeks. You may want to plan for that so you’re not caught short.
The rules and general practices for severance, and similar payments that are not legally required of employers but are part of optional benefits plans, is to pay them as soon as administratively possible. That is, admittedly, vague. It is different from payment of wages, where state law is often very specific about prompt payment.
One thing it means is that if there is a high volume of payments and HR/payroll staff has been cut to the bone, it may take a while. Staff are under a great deal of pressure to document that these payments were all made in accordance with the plan. That means verifying everyone’s length of service (can get complicated when people have multiple periods of employment, joined through acquisitions, had service in foreign subsidiaries, went on leaves of various types…)* and that all paperwork was completed. Accuracy is a higher priority than promptness on these payments, from the employer’s perspective, although excessive foot dragging could potentially expose them to some liability. So yes, consider that there may be a delay, especially if the layoff is a large one.
If you have one of these complicated employment histories and think a layoff might be in your future, you might want to check now what dates of service your employer has on record for you to make sure you get credit for all “time served.”
The biggest mistake I made was not traveling and doing some stuff that it’s impossible to do with a full time job. I had a lot of savings and the marketplace was a lot different then it is now, but it was one of the few times in my adult life that I didn’t have any real responsibilities and I didn’t take advantage of it.
A looooong time ago, I was a Jr exec for a “Major Metropolitian Newspaper”. When my crazy paranoid just like Rush Limbaugh boss fired me (he was fired two months later for mis-managment, but of course they didn’t bring any of us back:rolleyes:) they didn’t pay us for accrued vacation time as we were 'exempt".
So we filed a suit, and they paid us- but with a waiver we had to sign. Later when we found out that we really weren’t exempt management, we tried to get back OT. But we had signed a waiver.
My advice would be to re-do your resume and stick it out everywhere in the world you can think of (Monster, Careerbuilder, Dice, etc.) and do it now before you get all depressed and disheartened, which usually happens when the axe falls. Be sure you have all the key ‘buzzwords’ that are relevant to your field, and hit all the recruiters as well. If you aren’t familar with who they are, there is a great directory at: http://www.i-recruit.com/
Oh, but be careful of all the scams, like the ‘professional search firm’ that will ask for a payment in advance for their services to gain access to their ‘secret job bank’ or MLMs like Primerica that will pull your resume off Monster and try to sucker you in.
The joy of COBRA for a young, healthy person is it is free unless you need it, at least for a certain period of time. I think (and it has been a while) that you can back date your application if you have to file a claim, so you can go without insurance, and know if you have something catastrophic happen, you can get the coverage.
My biggest mistake each time but the last was the same - I took the first job I was offered, because I convinced myself there was nothing else out there, because I hate applying for jobs, and because I thought I was more broke than I was. The last time I took 3.5 years off and went to law school instead…
I almost got caught by something like that years ago.
Drove a good distance to Atlanta because these guys had gotten a wiff of my resume’. They had faxed me something where it looked like they wanted something like 2 to 5 percent of my salary for a year or two if they found me a job. I dont remember the exact percentage, but it was fairly small.
Seemed pretty reasonable, especially if they found me a job at the salary they thought they get me.
Well, once I got to Atlanta and actually visited their office, upon reading the fine print of something I could actually read , it was more like 20 to 50 percent!
I think the crappy fax was part of the scam.
To say I was pissed would be quite the understatement. I just walked out before somebody either ended up dead and/or I ended up in prison.
I find it amazing how often people are told that they are exempt when they are not.
My advice, and this goes for those working at a good job now. Network. And network with managers. I did not keep track of my former bosses or workers when I left jobs. My boss has kept in contact with a large number of people. Group get togethers for beer about once a month. And while I used engineering department heads and chief he used property managers that he had befriended. He was able to land several jobs before landing where we are now. I had a harder time landing a job.
