Mark Your Calendar: Open Enrollment Begins Oct. 31

Open Enrollment, the annual period when University faculty, staff and other eligible individuals make their benefit choices for the coming year, begins Monday, Oct. 31, and continues through Friday, Nov. 11.  This is the only time of year when you may elect or change your coverage for many benefits, unless you experience a qualifying life event.

With no changes to plan designs, Syracuse University continues to provide a comprehensive benefits package in 2017. Highlights include:

• Consistent with last year, the University continues to absorb a greater portion of the total cost of health care to help keep employee medical contributions more affordable. The University will hold its employee contribution increase to 6.97 percent, keeping in line with nationwide trends. This rate increase translates to $8.45-$29 per month depending on how many dependents an employee chooses to cover under their plan.
• There will be no copayment or coinsurance increases for any of the University’s plans including the medical, dental and vision plans.
• This is the year to carefully consider your dental and vision needs for the next two years. After this open enrollment period, plan changes will not be allowed until 2019 unless you experience a qualifying life event. Contributions for the dental and vision plans will have decreases ranging from 4-12 percent.
• Employee contributions for dependent life, supplemental life and AD&D, and voluntary long-term disability insurance will have no rate increases.
• During Open Enrollment, those eligible to participate in a flexible spending account for health care or dependent care must decide how much they will contribute to each account for 2017.

A summary video, information sessions, benefit newsletters and other news and information are available on the new Open Enrollment website—http://openenrollment.syr.edu—just launched by the Office of Human Resources.

Open Enrollment will be conducted online through MySlice beginning Oct. 31. Computer kiosks are available during normal business hours outside the Office of Human Resources in Skytop Office Building to provide additional computer access for online enrollment.

If you have any questions about Open Enrollment or benefits, please contact Human Resources Shared Services at 315.443.4042 or hrservic@syr.edu.