U.S. Department of Labor
Health Benefits Advisor for Employers
Glossary
Election Notice
Written notification to each qualified beneficiary of the qualified beneficiary's rights to COBRA continuation coverage. This notice must include, among many other things, information about the plan, qualifying events, length of COBRA continuation coverage, and how much a qualified beneficiary must pay for coverage and when and to whom the payments are due. This notice should explain how long the qualified beneficiary will have to decide whether or not to elect COBRA continuation coverage. The group health plan must allow at least 60 days from the date of the notice, or from the date coverage ended, whichever is later, for a qualified beneficiary to elect COBRA continuation coverage.
The Department of Labor has developed a model election notice [Spanish] that is intended to assist plan administrators of single-employer group health plans in satisfying the election notice requirement. Use of this model notice is not mandatory. However, in order to use it, a plan administrator must appropriately add relevant information where indicated in the model notice, select among alternative language, and supplement the model notice to reflect applicable plan provisions. Items of information that are not applicable to a particular plan may be deleted. Use of the model election notice appropriately modified and supplemented, will be considered by the Department to satisfy the election notice content requirements of COBRA for single-employer group health plans.
