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Eligibility Requirements for Non-Medicare Eligible Retirees

If you have not yet reached age 65 and are not yet eligible to enroll in Medicare, you may be eligible for benefits from this Plan. To be eligible, you must be receiving a pension from the Sheet Metal Workers’ Local No. 73 Pension Fund (referred to as the Pension Fund or Pension Plan), and:

  • You must be receiving a pension from the Pension Fund that is based on a minimum of ten (10) pension credits,
     
  • If the pension you are receiving from the Pension Fund is based on less than twenty-five (25) pension credits, you must have been credited with a minimum of three (3) pension credits within the period consisting of the Pension Plan year in which you retired and the six consecutive Pension Plan years immediately preceding the Plan Year during which you retired,
     
  • If you served as a full-time officer or business agent of the Union, you will receive credit for the years of service to the Union as if you were receiving Pension Credits for the sole purpose of determining eligibility for coverage under this Plan at the time of retirement; your service as a full-time officer or business agent of the Union will not affect eligibility for welfare coverage upon retirement since contributions are made to the Welfare Fund by the Union for such service, and
     
  • For purposes of determining eligibility for benefits from this Plan, pension credits mean only those pension credits directly awarded by the Pension Fund and do not include pension credits awarded by another pension fund that are taken into consideration in regard to a Reciprocal Pension.

When you retire, you have the choice of electing coverage in the Retiree Plan or electing COBRA continuation coverage. If you choose COBRA continuation coverage, you waive coverage under this Retiree Plan. If you choose coverage under this Retiree Plan, you waive COBRA continuation coverage. This means that if you elect either COBRA continuation coverage or coverage under the Retiree Plan, you may not at a later date choose the other type of coverage.

As a Retiree, you are not eligible for Weekly Accident and Sickness Benefits. Those benefits end on the last day of your coverage under the Sheet Metal Workers’ Local 73 Welfare Plan A for Active Members.

For the administrative convenience of the Plan, if you elect Retiree coverage and pay the required self-payment, you will continue to receive the benefits provided by the Sheet Metal Workers’ Local 73 Welfare Plan A for Active Members until the end of the calendar year in which you retire. On and after the January 1 that follows your retirement date, you will receive the benefits provided by this Plan.