November 4, 2024

Open Enrollment News

Open Enrollment for the 2025 Benefit Plans will begin on November 7, 2024, for full-time benefits-eligible employees of the College. As we near that time, we are providing an overview of the background of our healthcare renewal for 2025. 

  • As we noted last year, the healthcare insurance landscape is rapidly changing. For many years, the College has negotiated directly with our providers in a fully insured model. In this model, the employer and employee pay premiums to the insurer, which assumes all of the risk for payment of the actual claims. 
  • Capital Blue Cross has required our group to move to a self-insured market by 2025.  This allows us to sustain our same plan models and mitigate future large cost increases.
  • As a result, in 2025 the College is moving to a self-insured model as part of the LVAIC Health Insurance Consortium (HIC). This simply means that Lafayette will join the HIC, paying into a trust account that handles payment for claims.  This is a common approach across higher education, and institutions purchase insurance to ensure that the risks to institutional funds are minimal. 
  • Our health insurance administrator will continue to be Capital Blue Cross.  You will not see a difference when using your medical insurance nor when claims are processed according to the plan designs.
  • The College will continue to offer three health insurance plans (a Standard PPO, a Qualified High Deductible PPO with HSA, and a Low Deductible PPO Plan).
  • As in previous years, the Standard PPO plan will continue to set the benchmark for the College’s contribution. The College contribution to an employee’s monthly premium is the same whether the employee chooses the Low Deductible, Standard, or Qualified High Deductible PPO plan.   
  • There will be some plan design cost changes to the Standard PPO and Low Deductible PPO plans (see tables below). No plan changes will be made to the Qualified High Deductible PPO with the HSA plan. These changes will increase some co-pays and maximums but are crucial in order to minimize the overall cost impact on our employees.
  • The monthly employee increase for 2025 will be 5%, consistent with last year’s increase on the Standard plan.  While the College is faced with a 20% increase for the 2025 plan year and had only budgeted for an 8% increase, the institution will cover the gap this coming year.  Senior Leadership recognizes that employees will need more notice to adjust their budgets to absorb higher healthcare prices, and therefore, the College has committed to absorbing these costs temporarily.  We will be planning meetings in the spring to address future healthcare costs and tools that are available to help mitigate medical costs.
  • Plan Design Changes:

Beginning November 7th, all information pertaining to employee benefits for 2025 and the online enrollment process can be found at https://hr.Lafayette.edu/open-enrollment and in our Benefits Booklet for 2025. We encourage everyone to attend the Open Enrollment Fair on November 13, 2024. More information about premium rates will be forthcoming.  

Our Human Resources team is happy to help you with any questions that you may have.  Please connect with us at hroffice@lafayette.edu or (610) 330-5060 should you need any assistance.

Thank you!