What can I do if my husband works at a large drug company that was bought out but our health insurance coverage will change and our insurance deductible was met but will reset?

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What can I do if my husband works at a large drug company that was bought out but our health insurance coverage will change and our insurance deductible was met but will reset?

My husband works in warehousing for a huge drug company. He has been with them for 15 years as contractor who is permanently placed there. Every 2 -4 years, the drug company re-bids the warehousing contract out and changes to a new company. In 15 years, I believe they have been bid out/bought out about 5 times. This has always happened so that the change occurred to our benefits effective January 1st of the next year. This year, the change is occurring as of the end of June. Many of us had just met our health insurance deductibles and allegedly it will be reset under the new contract’s health insurance plan. Is this legal? We apparently won’t have any information about our health insurance for the first few weeks in July and will have to pay out of pocket and keep receipts and then submit for reimbursement. Most of us cannot afford to even have our health Insurance deductible reset. Do we have any rights here? The HR benefits administrator is clueless so I will be making calls to the new company and the corporate headquarters to fight this but need to know our rights legally.

Asked on June 5, 2019 under Employment Labor Law, North Carolina

Answers:

SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 4 years ago | Contributor

If, as seems to be the case from how you describe the situation, your husband will be working for a new entity (e.g. a different corporation or LLC) even if in the same position or location, it is legal. His health insurance was through Company A--the insurance contract was between the insurer and Company A. The contract does not transfer to Company B; rather, Company B will put its employees, even ones "inherited" (so to speak) from Company A under a new insurande policy/contract. Therefore, the deductibles, etc. start over. If the identity of your husband's employer changes, then even if he's doing the same job in the same way, it's like he changed jobs and went to a new company; when that happens, you start over with the new company's insurance.


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