Eligibility
All regular full time employees who work 30 or more hours per week are eligible for all City of Fort Worth benefits.
Part-time employees who work 20–29 hours per week are eligible for dental, basic life insurance, supplemental life insurance, flexible spending accounts, 457 plan, and voluntary benefits.
Part-time employees who work fewer than 20 hours per week, as well as seasonal and temporary employees, are not eligible for benefits.
Employees can enroll their spouse, common law spouse, natural child, foster child, stepchild, grandchild, legally adopted child, or child under the employee’s legal guardianship or custodianship onto a city health plan as a dependent.
Dependent Certification
In order to add your dependents you need to supply Human Resources with the required forms of proof of relationship status. Unless otherwise indicated all documentation should be originals.
Below are the documents required for each dependent type:
Spouse
- Marriage License AND
- Last year’s tax return if married for more than 12 months OR
- If common law: Declaration and Registration of Informal Marriage available at the county clerk’s office
Dependent Child(ren)
- Birth certificate(s) listing employee, spouse as parent. For stepchildren, when not covering the spouse, a marriage certificate and tax return will be requested.
- If applicable:
- Adoption agreement
- Legal guardianship documents
- Divorce decree documents identifying the dependent child; or
- Qualified Medical Court Support Order
Disabled Dependent Children
For disabled dependent children age 26 or over, whose disability began prior to age 26, a completed dependent eligibility questionnaire verifying an ongoing total disability and written documentation from a physician verifying an ongoing disability may be required.
Coverage Effective Dates
Medical, Dental, Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), Health Savings Account (HSA) and Voluntary Plans,
Basic Life, Supplemental Life and Long Term Disability
First of the month following 30 days after date of hire
Pension Plan, 457 Deferred Compensation
Immediately upon hire
Qualifying Events
| Qualifying events are situations that may arise during the plan year that allow you to make changes to your plan(s). Qualifying events are determined by the Internal Revenue Service and must follow what the IRS calls the ‘consistency rule.’ What this means is that the change to the plan is a logical response to the qualifying event. For example, the loss of your spouse’s job would not allow you to drop the spouse from the health insurance because that is not a change consistent with the qualifying event.
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For a qualifying event, please visit cfwbenefits.com
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| Qualifying Event |
Deadline to Enroll |
Change Date |
Documentation Required |
Marriage
Common law marriage
|
30 days from event date
|
Date of Event
|
Marriage license; Affidavit of Domestic Partnership ;
Declaration and Registration of Informal Marriage available at the County Clerk’s Office
|
Birth
Adoption
Placement for Adoption
|
60 days from event date
|
Date of Event
|
Birth certificate/birth facts document from the hospital;
Adoption agreement Custody /Guardianship Documents;
Portion of the divorce decree showing the dependent (if applicable)
|
Commencement of employment by spouse or change in hours affecting health insurance eligibility
(Gain of coverage)
|
30 days from event date
|
Date of Event
|
No document required
|
Termination of employment by spouse or change in hours affecting health insurance eligibility
(Loss of coverage)
|
30 days from event date
|
Date of Event |
Birth certificate will be required if not previously covered
Marriage license will be required if not previously covered
|
Death
|
30 days from event date
|
Date of Event
|
Copy of the death certificate
|
Divorce
|
30 days from event date
|
Date of Event
|
No documents required
|
Under the Pension Protection Act, the City of Fort Worth is now required to send employees a 1095-C form, which identifies who was covered by the city's health insurance plan for the plan year.
Employees should keep the 1095-C form with a copy of their completed tax returns after filing to avoid potential penalties in the event of an IRS audit.