Applying for LTD is easier than ever!

Scheduling In-Person Visits

Employer Training Webinar

Benefits U Conference

PRN Status Employees

From the Education Desk

Upcoming Annual Salary Verification Report

Current Email Addresses

Department Newsletter

 A note from MO Deferred Comp regarding PRN status employees

The MO Deferred Comp Plan has seen an increase in withdrawal requests from PRN status employees. Per the MO Deferred Comp plan document section 2.11, an “Employee means any individual who is a common-law employee of the Employer (the State of Missouri and its agencies or departments), regardless of the part-time or full-time status, and including temporary employees. For this purpose, a ‘temporary employee’ means an employee hired on an hourly, intermittent, or seasonal basis.”

Withdrawals from MO Deferred Comp are available after termination of employment, which occurs because of retirement, discharge, resignation, or death. If an employee has not retired under MOSERS or MPERS, or terminated for one of the other reasons listed above, a termination status will not be updated.

When an employee elects to move to a PRN status without terminating, they remain an active employee and are not eligible to receive a regular distribution from the plan. They may at that time apply for an unforeseen emergency withdrawal if their circumstances warrant.

If your agency has questions regarding this process, contact the local MO Deferred Comp office at (800) 392-0925 opt. 2 for clarification.

When you have an employee ready to apply for LTD, simply have them call The Standard at (844) 505-6026 to submit the employee statement via telephone. Then you – the HR representative – fill out the short Employer Statement and email it to ltdmosers@standard.com and The Standard will take care of the rest (reaching out to the physician and collecting medical records)!

Please remember to NEVER e-mail paper applications to MOSERS or The Standard. They contain your employee’s health information and also their full name, address and Social Security number. Emailing this type of information poses risks to all parties involved, especially the member. For more information on this new LTD application process, please watch the LTD webinar put together by The Standard to illustrate the most effective way to file for LTD benefits.

Please share with your staff who are responsible for submitting HR/payroll data to MOSERS and encourage them to attend.

Registration is OPEN!

Register today at Employer Training Webinar - Transfers & Terms 2.0 to join the MOSERS Employer Services staff on Thursday, July 29 from 10:00 a.m. until 10:45 a.m. and learn more about transfer and termination forms.

We will post the recording on the Employer Training webpage as soon as possible after the event. 

Around the end of June, we sent an email to employees within five years of retirement eligibility reminding them to join us for a Ready to Retire session. This is a great opportunity to learn about the decisions they will need to make and to prepare for the retirement process. To accommodate different work schedules, we have both day and evening sessions available. Employees will sign up for a session based upon their plan:

• MSEP & MSEP 2000 for general state employees
• MSEP & MSEP 2000 for university employees
• MSEP 2011 for general state employees

If you have employees who have registered for an in-person session and are unable to attend, please have them contact MOSERS in advance at (800) 827-1063 to cancel. This will open a seat in the seminar and allow us to provide an accurate headcount to the caterer, venue, etc. We are still requiring social distancing in conference rooms. To ensure sufficient seating for our members, spouses and guests may not attend in-person seminars at this time. However, a spouse or guest is welcome (and encouraged) to attend with the employee in an online webinar.

If you have employees nearing their retirement eligibility date, please encourage them to register today for a session! As with all of our member education events, HR representatives are also welcome to attend.

Please contact MOSERSEducation@mosers.org if you have any questions.

Registration coming soon! We have finalized the conference agenda and are excited to share that other state benefit providers will be participating in the conference via virtual booths! Visit the Benefits U webpage for the most current information. We anticipate registration opening around the first part of August.

Reminders: The conference will be held online this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation. With the online nature, sessions will be scheduled over a series of days instead of everything held in one day.

Did you know we have several benefit counselors who are available to meet with employees face to face in our Jefferson City office? If members have questions about their MOSERS retirement, life insurance, or long-term disability benefits, they can certainly ask those questions over the phone or by email. However, if they prefer, they can schedule an appointment in our office. Counselors are available to assist members from 8:00 a.m. until noon and from 1:00 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Our benefit counselors can:

• Print off benefit estimates while you are here
• Discuss your retirement options
• Show you how to retire online
• Personally assist you if you need to submit a claim for life insurance or long-term disability
• And so much more!

Please encourage your employees to make an appointment in advance and to see our tips for in-person visits.

We will release the Annual Salary Verification Report in mid-August and send a follow-up notice when the report is ready for you to view and work it.

The report is an essential step in ensuring that covered employees receive the correct basic life insurance coverage each year.

Eligible employees receive one times their annual salary in basic life insurance coverage. The amount of coverage adjusts each January according to the employee’s annual earnings in effect on July 31 of the previous year (or the employee’s first day of coverage if not covered on July 31).

• Annual earnings include normal earnings from a benefit-eligible position, including shift differential pay.
• Overtime pay and other irregular payments are excluded from annual earnings.

Last year we received a few inquiries regarding the pay types of “retention pay,” a “security differential,” and “COVID-19 pay.”  Please note:

• Retention pay and a security differential (just as a shift differential noted above) are included in annual earnings.
• COVID-19 pay, on the other hand, is excluded from annual earnings.

Additionally, if an employee is working in both a benefit-eligible and non-benefit eligible position at the same time, only pay from the benefit-eligible position is included in annual earnings.

Please email employers@mosers.org if you have questions about the annual salary verification process. You can also watch a brief video tutorial on how to work the report, if needed.

Does your agency have a periodic newsletter? We are always looking for new ways to get benefit information to our members. If your agency has a newsletter and is interested, we would be happy to provide beneficial information regarding MOSERS benefits. Please contact MOSERSEducation@mosers.org if you are interested.

Please do not send LTD packets to MOSERS or The Standard via unencrypted email due to the sensitivity of the personal data involved. Rather than emailing forms, please instruct employees to call in their claims to The Standard at (844)-505-6026. We appreciate your cooperation. Thank you! 

We will host the next employer training webinar on Thursday, July 29 from 10:00 a.m. until 10:45 a.m. This session will be delivered by the MOSERS Employer Services Department and, based on your feedback from the last webinar, topics will include a deeper dive into transfer and termination forms.

Visit our Employer Training webpage for the most up-to-date information!

Last week, we sent an email to newer employees inviting them to join us for a Newer Employees & MOSERS Webinar. This is a great opportunity to start learning about the employee benefits administered by MOSERS, including pension, life insurance, long-term disability, and personal retirement savings plan options. To accommodate different work schedules, we have both day and an evening session available.

If you have newer employees, please encourage them to register today for a session! As with all of our member education events, HR representatives are also welcome to attend!

Please contact MOSERSEducation@mosers.org if you have any questions! 

Save the dates for this year’s Benefits U Conference! We are currently finalizing our agenda for speakers and session content and will continue sharing updates as things develop. You will always find the most current information on the Benefits U webpage. We anticipate registration opening around the first part of August.

If you missed prior updates, here are a couple of reminders: the conference will be held online this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation; and, with the online nature, sessions will be scheduled over a series of days instead of everything in one day. 

The employer retirement contribution rate is calculated by MOSERS’ external actuary and is certified by the MOSERS Board of Trustees every year. As a reminder, the employer retirement contribution rates for MSEP, MSEP 2000, and MSEP 2011, as well as for the Judicial Plan and Judicial Plan 2011, are changing effective July 1, 2021. 

The changes to the employer retirement contribution rates for the respective plans effective July 1, 2021 are as follows: 

There are no changes to the employer contribution rates for CURP, basic life insurance, and long-term disability benefits.   

If you are a Non-SAM II employer, please take note and adjust retirement contributions effective July 1, 2021 as needed.

If you are a SAM II employer, contributions occur automatically as a percentage of payroll, and no additional action is required of you.

For more information about Employer Contributions, please visit our website.  

All newly-hired benefit-eligible employees (or former employees who have missed at least 30 calendar days of payroll) must be keyed into the Statewide Employee Benefit Enrollment System (SEBES) on their date of hire, or as soon as possible thereafter. New benefit-eligible employees have only 31 days from their date of hire to enroll in most benefit offerings. Failing to enroll an employee through SEBES could result in a delay or ineligibility for certain benefits. When entering an employee’s information in SEBES, it is very important to enter information correctly. Information entered incorrectly could impact the employee’s ability to enroll in or utilize MOSERS-sponsored benefits.

Universities: SEBES does not apply to “education employees” enrolled in CURP. However, eligible CURP employees electing to transfer from CURP to MOSERS must be enrolled through SEBES in addition to completing the Transfer of CURP Membership form.

What do I do if I key a new employee’s demographic information incorrectly in SEBES?

If you make an error when entering a new employee’s demographic information in SEBES, correct the error by updating the employee’s profile in SEBES. To update or make changes to an employee’s demographic information, log in to your SEBES employer account and, under the Employee tab, select Update. Make the necessary corrections and click Update.

What do I do if I entered the SSN of a new employee incorrectly into SEBES?

If you create the SEBES record with an incorrect SSN, you must delete the record and re-enter the member in SEBES with the correct SSN. To delete the employee from SEBES, log into your SEBES employer account and, under the Employee tab, select Delete. Key in the incorrect SSN and select Incorrect SSN as the reason for the deletion, then click Submit.

Additionally, you must delete the record and re-enter correct information for employees entered into SEBES with incorrect employment information, including:

• hire date,
• benefit-eligible information, or
• job classification. 
  

What do I do if an employee I entered into SEBES did not show up for work on their hire date?

If the new employee did not show up for work on their hire date, delete their record from SEBES.

Under certain circumstances, members can purchase service based upon their prior public service or active-duty military service for credit in MOSERS. Prior public service includes full-time employment with another public entity in Missouri, such as a city or county government, a local school district, or the University of Missouri System. By purchasing eligible service, members can increase the amount of their future retirement benefit and, in some cases, become eligible to retire at an earlier date. 

Members have a few options to pay for service purchases, including a one-time lump-sum payment, installment plan (monthly or semi-monthly payments for up to two years), a rollover from a qualified retirement plan, or a combination thereof. 

Members who are paid through SAM II can have installment payments deducted from their payroll check. Members electing this option must have their MOSERS Election to Purchase Service form signed by their payroll/personnel officer. The payroll/personnel officer must enter the deduction as directed on the form into SAM II using MSRBB as the deduction type and deduction plan.  

On occasion, members may have more than one service purchase agreement. For example, a member may choose to buy both their active-duty military service and their time working for a city or county government in Missouri. It is important to note that SAM II will not allow two separate MSRBB deductions to be entered. In these cases, the payroll/personnel officer must combine the payments into one MSRBB deduction. 

Payroll deduction for an installment plan is available only to members who are paid through SAM II.

Members who are not paid through SAM II can make monthly installment payments directly to MOSERS. 

Thank you to all who participated in the employer survey regarding our new pension administration system (PAS)! Your input will help us gauge the overall understanding of the PAS among employer representatives and help guide us regarding future communications to you about the PAS. We will continue to update you through HR Update and the upcoming Benefits U conference. 

Follow the link below to find the Employer Forms Webinar recording from April 21, 2021.

Employer Forms Webinar - RECORDING

To register to watch the recording, enter your name and email address. To move through the recording use the progress bar at the bottom: 

00 – 13 min: Intro to MOSERS Forms

13 – 33 min: Leave of Absence Form, including Back to Work

33 – 40 min: Transfer of Employment Form

40 – 60 min Termination of Employment Form

1:00 – 1:27 min: Q & A; overview of Employer webpage

The content was presented by Juanita Mummert, Assistant Benefits Officer-Education; Jamie Mullen, Employer Services Manager; Juanita Libbert, Receivables Analyst; and Shelley Lehmann, Contribution Analyst.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Download Webinar handouts:

• Employer Forms Webinar – Slides
• Employer Forms – Quick Reference
• Employer Forms – FAQ
• Leave of Absence Resources [Impact on Benefits; Flow Chart; Military Leave]

Does your agency have a periodic newsletter? We are always looking for new ways to get benefit information to our members. If your agency has a newsletter and is interested, we would be happy to provide beneficial information regarding MOSERS benefits. Please contact MOSERSEducation@mosers.orgif you are interested.

The Access Authorization form, which is used to grant employer representatives secure access to specific employee information through our secure Employer Login, has recently been updated. The updates were made to better identify employer representatives who serve as the primary contact for HR/payroll functions or LTD claim administration.

Primary contacts serve an important role in managing their employees’ MOSERS-sponsored benefits, and identifying these contacts will help ensure that benefits are administered timely and accurately. An employer representative completing the Access Authorization form will now designate if they are the primary HR/payroll or LTD contact in Section B of the form.

Employer Representative Access and Responsibilities

All employer representatives submitting the Access Authorization form will:

• Have access to all organizations/sections within their department/agency/university; and
• Have the ability to view reports and submit forms.
  

Employer representatives identified as the primary contact have additional responsibilities in the administration of MOSERS-sponsored benefits:

• Primary HR/payroll contact: Will resolve payroll and service discrepancies identified on MOSERS’ error reports. Orgs/Sections for which they are the primary contact must be noted on the Access Authorization form.
• Primary LTD contact: Will complete the Employer Statement for LTD claims. Orgs/Sections for which they are the primary contact must be noted on the Access Authorization form.
  

Helpful Hints

• The Access Authorization form must be signed by the agency director.
• Each organization/section can have only one employer representative designated as the primary HR/payroll contact and one employer representative designated as the primary LTD contact. Employer representatives who serve as the primary contact for both HR/payroll and LTD should indicate both in Section B. 
• If the employer representative submitting the form will be taking the place of a previous employer representative who was designated as the primary contact, space is provided in Section B to list the name of the employer representative they are replacing and the effective date.