September 2000 Trust Talk

Plan Information Booklets

More plan information is on the way, but in two waves: Prudential issues booklets that are the official governing document for their plans, while the Trust will provide you with booklets that give you plan overviews.

All members covered by supplemental and/or basic life insurance will receive updates to their coverage levels (if applicable). For instance, you may have increased your supplemental life coverage level during spring open enrollment; this change would generate an update to you from Prudential.

Prudential sends you a booklet-certificate when you become eligible for basic life insurance coverage (usually a few months after your one-year anniversary of continuous State service). If you enroll in supplemental life insurance as a new hire, you'll receive a booklet-certificate a few months later.

The Trust is currently creating a series of booklets to give you thorough plan information without the heavy detail of the booklet-certificates or other formal plan documents. There will be five booklets in the series: dental, vision, basic life insurance and accidental death, supplemental life insurance and Working Solutions Service. Once printed, we will distribute a set to each member, whether eligible for or enrolled in that coverage or not. Thereafter, we will mail supplemental life insurance and Working Solutions Service booklets only to new hires, and dental, vision and basic life insurance and accidental death booklets to members upon their one-year anniversaries. Of course, if any substantial element of a plan changes, we will revise, reprint and redistribute the affected book to all members at that time.

Changes may be occurring to your plans; as such, we will probably postpone the initial distribution of all booklets to spring 2001. To keep current with the progress, you can check the Trust's website for details about the booklet release (or for advance copies as PDF files): www.benefitstrust.org