December 1999 Trust Talk

Keeping the Trust

This is a critical time for the Trust since the upcoming negotiations may affect your benefit levels and the long-term viability of the Trust. Please remember this as you support your Union’s negotiating team.

The Trust tries to meet your benefits needs with our available funding, and we frequently evaluate the services and benefits we offer to make sure we’re doing that. As the Trust considers how to continue to provide benefits that will meet your needs in the future, it is dependent upon the funding negotiated during collective bargaining.

As a Union-represented State employee, you have advantages that exempt employees don’t.

With the Trust, you have:

• Vision choice
  
  
• Dental choice
  
  
• Working Solutions Service and
  
  
• Disability Gap coverage.
  
  

Also, the Trust worked to get you better rates on your life insurance, increase the double indemnity coverage, and improve vision and dental coverage; we were able to do this through smart purchasing. The funding has not significantly increased, and is about the same as what the State was paying when the Trust took over in 1993.

Our operational costs have also stayed low, which means most of the funding received goes directly to paying the cost of your benefits for you. In fact, the only member-paid benefit is the supplemental life insurance.

Due to the number of members served and demands by the membership, the Trust has improved plans or added services that support the mission over time.

Here’s how it’s gotten better:

1995

• Improved vision coverage

The frame allowance increased by $15 per member on a wholesale basis (realized increase for member of $30 - $50 per pair of glasses).

1996

• Enhanced basic and supplemental life insurance

Basic - a new feature was added that pays an additional one times your normal coverage amount if you die as a result of an occupational injury/accident.

Supplemental - premium rates were lowered.

• Enhanced dentalbenefits

The Preferred Choice plan was added, raising the total of Trust dental plan offerings to three. The orthodontia lifetime maximum was raised from $750 to $1,000 in the Quality Dental Plan, and the new Preferred Choice plan matched that level for in-network orthodontic care.

1997

• Reduced paperwork for vision care

Members are no longer burdened with a lot of paperwork when scheduling an appointment with their in-network vision care provider.

• Improved DMO® benefits

Benefit levels were raised in the DMO® in several classes of service. Now, fillings, sealants, most oral surgery procedures and root canals are paid at 100% (increased from 60%) when care is received by the member’s personal dentist.

• Added Working Solutions Service

This innovative service was added to help members who told us they were being crunched by the special care needs of their loved ones.

Working Solutions is a referral and information service, specially focused on elder care needs and special needs dependents, including children with special needs.

1998

• Lowered supplemental life rates for members

Premium rates for both members and dependents were decreased when coverage was changed from Hartford to Prudential.

• Added a vision choice

The Cole vision plan was added while retaining the existing VSP plan. Eligible members can choose the type of plan that best suits their families’ eye care needs. Also, as the VSP and Cole network have little overlap in participating providers, members now have a whole new network to consider - one in which they can obtain a higher level of benefits.

• Developed "Disability Gap" insurance

In response to the State’s measure in the 1997 collective bargaining sessions, disability gap coverage was added. This special coverage restores members’ disability coverage to pre-1997 levels, by offsetting the retroactive lifetime maximum.

1999

• Added website

Due to high member interest, the Trust developed a website in January with links on benefits and unions, customer service via e-mail and forms for downloading.

• Introduced new phone system with faxback option

To offer members more access to customer service, round the clock, we added the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) phone system. The system has answers to frequently asked questions, some personal benefits information and also the ability to reach a customer service representative. This system may also be the foundation for possible benefits enrollment over the phone (in the future).

Future

The Trust will continue to focus on our current members and their needs, while exploring the possibility of growing to serve other Union-represented public employees. Additionally, we'll keep up communication efforts so that you can get benefits information when you want it.

A successful negotiation of the Trust's funding in 2000 will ensure that your benefits will be maintained and kept under Union leadership.