Your Eligible Dependents become Participants in the Fund on the later of:
- The day you begin participation; or
- The date you enroll them with the Fund Office.
Your newborn Child will automatically become covered as a Dependent under the Fund on the date the Child is born.
Example: Your Dependents' Eligibility
In example 1 above, Tom becomes eligible for coverage on October 1, 2014. Tom’s spouse and his unmarried Dependent Children become eligible on the same date.
Eligible Dependents are defined as follows:
- Your legal spouse;
- Your Dependent Children up to age 26; and
- Your Dependent Children of any age if mentally or physically disabled, as long as the mental or physical handicap began before the Child reached age 26.
Dependent Children include married or unmarried dependents, regardless of student status, who are the member’s natural children, adopted children, or children placed for adoption with the member, stepchildren, and foster children placed with the member by an authorized agency or by court order, judgment or decree.
To enroll your newborn or newly acquired Child, you must provide the Fund Office with a copy of the birth certificate or adoption papers. Dependent status may continue until each Child’s 26th birthday.
If your Dependent Child is mentally or physically disabled or handicapped and is chiefly dependent on you, Plan benefits will continue as long as your Dependent is disabled or handicapped. To be eligible, your Child must be unable to engage in the normal activities of a person of like gender and age in good health due to disability or handicap. You must contact the Fund Office within 31 days before Plan benefits might otherwise terminate (at age 26) to apply for continued coverage for your disabled or handicapped Dependent Child, and provide proof that your Dependent Child’s disability will continue past his or her 26th birthday. If you do not provide proof of your Dependent Child’s continuing disability, his or her welfare coverage under the Plan will terminate as of his/her 26th birthday. If you provide such proof after your Dependent Child’s coverage has already been terminated, coverage will be reinstated.
An unmarried disabled child who has reached age 26, but does not reside with you, will be a Dependent Child under the Plan if:
- The Child’s parents are divorced or legally separated under a decree of divorce or separate maintenance, are separated under a written separation agreement, or live apart at all times during the last six months of the calendar year;
- The Child’s parents provide over one-half of the Child’s support during the calendar year; and
- The Child is in the custody of one or both of his or her parents for more than one-half of the calendar year and is not the qualifying child of any other person during the calendar year.
The Plan will provide benefits for your Dependent Child who is named as an alternate recipient in a Qualified Medical Child Support Order (QMCSO).
Your Dependents’ benefits are subject to the rules outlined in the Coordination of Benefits.