Extension of Certain Timeframes for Employee Benefit Plans, Participants, Beneficiaries, Qualified Beneficiaries, and Claimants Affected by Hurricane Helene, Tropical Storm Helene, or Hurricane Milton

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY <SUBAGY>Internal Revenue Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>26 CFR Part 54</CFR> DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Employee Benefits Security Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>29 CFR Parts 2560 and 2590</CFR> <SUBJECT>Extension of Certain Timeframes for Employee Benefit Plans, Participants, Beneficiaries, Qualified Beneficiaries, and Claimants Affected by Hurricane Helene, Tropical Storm Helene, or Hurricane Milton</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCIES:</HD> Employee Benefits Security Administration, Department of Labor; Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Extension of timeframes. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This document announces the extension of certain timeframes under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and the Internal Revenue Code for group health plans, disability and other welfare plans, pension plans, and participants, beneficiaries, qualified beneficiaries, and claimants of these plans affected by Hurricane Helene, Tropical Storm Helene, or Hurricane Milton. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> November 8, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Department of Labor, Elizabeth Schumacher or David Sydlik, Office of Health Plan Standards and Compliance Assistance, Employee Benefits Security Administration, at 202-693-8335, and Thomas Hindmarch, Office of Regulations and Interpretations, Employee Benefits Security Administration, at 202-693-8500; or William Fischer, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury at 202-317-5500. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Purpose</HD> In this document, the Employee Benefits Security Administration, Department of Labor, Internal Revenue Service, and Department of the Treasury (the Agencies) are extending certain timeframes otherwise applicable to group health plans, disability and other welfare benefit plans, pension plans, and their participants, beneficiaries, qualified beneficiaries, and claimants under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the Code), under the authority of section 518 of ERISA and section 7508A(b) of the Code. <E T="51">1 2</E> <FTREF/> In order to ensure that plans, participants, beneficiaries, qualified beneficiaries, and claimants in disaster areas are not further adversely affected by Hurricane Helene, Tropical Storm Helene, and Hurricane Milton with respect to their employee benefit plans, certain timeframes are extended during the Relief Period established by this document, as explained in further detail below. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  ERISA section 518 and Code section 7508A(b) generally provide that, in the case of an employee benefit plan, sponsor, administrator, participant, beneficiary, or other person with respect to such a plan affected by a federally declared disaster (as defined in section 162(i)(5) of the Code), a terroristic or military action, or a public health emergency declared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services pursuant to section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretaries of Labor and the Treasury may prescribe (by notice or otherwise) a period of up to 1 year that may be disregarded in determining the date by which any action is required or permitted to be completed. Section 518 of ERISA and section 7508A(b) of the Code further provide that no plan shall be treated as failing to be operated in accordance with the terms of the plan solely as a result of complying with the postponement of a deadline under those sections. <SU>2</SU>  See, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Hurricane Helene Recovery: Brief Overview of FEMA Programs and Resources, (October 3, 2024), available at <E T="03">https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12429;</E> 89 FR 84908 (October 24, 2024); 89 FR 84923 (October 24, 2024); 89 FR 84919 (October 24, 2024); 89 FR 84914 (October 24, 2024); 89 FR 84912 (October 24, 2024); 89 FR 84920 (October 24, 2024). </FTNT> As a result of Hurricane Helene, Tropical Storm Helene, and Hurricane Milton, participants, beneficiaries, qualified beneficiaries, and claimants covered by group health plans, disability or other employee welfare benefit plans, and employee pension benefit plans may encounter problems in exercising their health coverage portability and continuation coverage rights, or in filing or perfecting their benefit claims. Recognizing the numerous challenges such individuals already face as a result of these natural disasters, it is important that the Agencies take steps to minimize the possibility of such individuals losing benefits because of a failure to comply with certain pre-established timeframes. Similarly, the Agencies recognize that affected group health plans may have difficulty in complying with the timing of certain notice obligations. The Agencies believe the relief established by this document is immediately needed to preserve and protect the benefits of participants, beneficiaries, qualified beneficiaries, and claimants in affected plans. Accordingly, the Agencies have determined, pursuant to section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(A), (B) and 553(d), that there is good cause for granting the relief provided by this document effective immediately upon publication, and that notice and public participation may result in undue delay and, therefore, be contrary to the public interest. This document has been reviewed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which has advised the Agencies that HHS concurs with the relief specified in this document in the application of the laws under its jurisdiction. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Section 104 of Title I of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires that the Secretaries of Labor, the Treasury, and Health and Human Services (the Departments) ensure through an interagency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that regulations, rulings, and interpretations issued by each of the Departments relating to the same matter over which two or more departments have jurisdiction, are administered so as to have the same effect at all times. Under section 104 of HIPAA, the Departments, through the MOU, are to provide for coordination of policies relating to enforcement of the same requirements in order to have a coordinated enforcement strategy that avoids duplication of enforcement efforts and assigns priorities in enforcement. See section 104 of HIPAA and Memorandum of Understanding applicable to Title XXVII of the PHS Act, Part 7 of ERISA, and Chapter 100 of the Code, published at 64 FR 70164, December 15, 1999. </FTNT> HHS has advised the Agencies that HHS encourages plan sponsors of non-Federal governmental plans and health insurance issuers offering group or individual health insurance coverage to extend otherwise applicable timeframes under titles XXII and XXVII of the Public Health Service Act (PHS Act)  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> for participants, beneficiaries, and enrollees in a manner consistent with the relief provided in this document. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The applicable PHS Act provisions are (1) the 30-day period (or 60-day period, if applicable) to request special enrollment under PHS Act section 2704(f); (2) the 60-day election period for COBRA continuation coverage under PHS Act section 2205; (3) the date for making COBRA premium payments pursuant to PHS Act section 2202(2)(C) and (3); (4) the date for individuals to notify the plan of a qualifying event or determination of disability under PHS Act section 2206(3); (5) the date within which individuals may file a benefit claim under the plan's claims procedure pursuant to 45 CFR 147.136(b) (incorporating 29 CFR 2560.503-1); (6) the date within which claimants may file an appeal of an adverse benefit determination under the plan's claims procedure pursuant to 45 CFR 147.136(b) (incorporating 29 CFR 2560.503-1(h)); (7) the date within which claimants may file a request for an external review after receipt of an adverse benefit determination or final internal adverse benefit determination pursuant to 45 CFR 147.136(c)(2)(vi) and (d)(2)(i), and (8) the date within which a claimant may file information to perfect a request for external review upon a finding that the request was not complete pursuant to 45 CFR 147.136(d)(2)(ii). </FTNT> The relief provided by this document supplements other disaster relief guidance issued by the Agencies, which can be accessed at: <E T="03">https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/employers-and-advisers/plan-administration-and-compliance/disaster-relief</E> and <E T="03">https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-relief-in-disaster-situations.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> Title I of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) provides portability of health coverage by, among other things, requiring special enrollment rights into group health plans upon the loss of eligibility for other coverage or gaining a dependent through marriage, birth, adoption or placement for adoption. ERISA section 701, Code section 9801, 29 CFR 2590.701-6, 26 CFR 54.9801-6. Title X of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) permits certain qualified beneficiaries who lose coverage under a group health plan to elect continuation health coverage. ERISA section 601, Code section 4980B, 26 CFR 54.4980B-1. Section 503 of ERISA and 29 CFR 2560.503-1 require employee benefit plans subject to Title I of ERISA to establish and maintain reasonable procedures governing the determination and appeal of claims for benefits under the plan. Section 2719 of the PHS Act, incorporated into ERISA by ERISA section 715, and into the Code by Code section 9815, imposes addit ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━