How does Service 1st Benefits support my business during open enrollment?

We personally manage the entire open enrollment process — from educating employees to handling enrollment forms and answering plan questions. Our goal is to make open enrollment smooth and stress-free for everyone.

Can employees contact you directly for help?

Yes. Employees can reach out to us anytime for questions about claims, coverage, ID cards, or plan details. We act as your team’s benefits partner, not just your broker.

What size businesses do you work with?

We specialize in serving small and medium-sized businesses, typically ranging from 1–200 employees. If you’re growing or planning to expand, we help scale your benefits as your team grows.

Do you handle communication with insurance carriers for us?

Absolutely. We take care of claims issues, employee changes, renewals, and any carrier communication so you don’t have to spend hours on hold.

Do you offer voluntary or supplemental benefits?

Yes. We can provide optional add-ons like disability, accident, or critical illness insurance to enhance your benefits package at little or no cost to the employer.

What types of group benefits do you offer?

We provide comprehensive group health, dental, vision, and life insurance options for small and medium-sized businesses. We help you compare plans, handle enrollment, and manage carrier communication.

What information do you need to provide a quote?

We typically need: Number of employees Basic employee census (age, gender, ZIP code) Current plan (if applicable) Desired benefits or coverage goals We keep the process as simple as possible.

Do you charge fees for your services?

No. Our services — including plan comparison, open enrollment, and year-round support — are provided at no additional cost to your business.

3 COBRA Administration Mistakes That Create Real Liability

Service 1st Benefits

Sep 24

2 min read

COBRA administration is one of those services that runs smoothly until it doesn't — most employers handle the routine cases fine, but three specific mistakes come up often enough, and carry enough real financial exposure, that they're worth calling out on their own.

Mistake 1: Miscalculating the Premium

The standard rule is that a COBRA premium can't exceed 102% of what the plan actually costs for a similarly-situated active employee — the extra 2% covers administrative cost. That part's usually fine. Where it goes wrong is the disability extension: once a qualified beneficiary is approved, the premium cap jumps to 150% for months 19 through 29, and it's easy to either keep billing at 102% (undercharging) or apply 150% too early or to the wrong months. Either error creates a real problem — undercharging means absorbing a cost that should've been passed through; overcharging exposes the plan to a claim.

Mistake 2: Missing a Secondary Qualifying Event

A spouse or dependent already on COBRA can be entitled to a full 36 months of coverage — not the standard 18 — if a second qualifying event happens during that original 18-month window: the covered employee dies, the covered employee and spouse divorce or legally separate, the covered employee becomes entitled to Medicare, or a dependent child loses eligibility under the plan. This only extends coverage if the second event would have caused a loss of coverage on its own. It's easy to miss because it requires someone to actually flag the event — the qualified beneficiary has 60 days to notify the plan administrator of a divorce or a dependent losing eligibility, and if that notification gets lost or nobody's tracking for it, the extension can get missed entirely.

Mistake 3: Mishandling the Disability Extension

If a qualified beneficiary is determined disabled by the Social Security Administration within the first 60 days of COBRA coverage, the entire family on that COBRA coverage — not just the disabled individual — can extend from 18 months to 29 months. The mistakes here run in both directions: missing the extension entirely because nobody connected a disability determination to the COBRA timeline, or applying it to only the disabled person instead of the whole family unit that's entitled to it.

Why These Are Easy to Miss

None of these three come up on a fixed calendar the way a notice deadline does — they're triggered by something happening in a specific person's life, at an unpredictable time, and someone has to catch it and connect it to the right COBRA rule. A missed notice deadline is a process failure; these are more like a missed signal, which is a different kind of risk to manage.

Final Thoughts

Good COBRA administration isn't just sending the initial notice on time — it's staying alert to the events that happen months into someone's COBRA coverage and changing what they're entitled to. Those are the ones that actually create liability when they're missed, precisely because nobody's watching for them the way they watch for the big deadlines.