Open Enrollment 2023 Video Transcript

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[Joe Williams, Senior Director of Benefits, Leave and Total WellBeing for UNC-Chapel Hill]

Every October here at UNC, we have Open Enrollment. This is your once-a-year opportunity to add, delete or make changes to the benefit plans that best fit the needs for you and your family.

I’m Joe Williams, senior director of Benefits, Leave Administration and Total WellBeing here at UNC-Chapel Hill. I want to share some details with you about this year’s Open Enrollment period, which runs Monday, October 9 through Friday, October 27.

This video will cover what’s new this year and highlight some helpful tips for completing your Open Enrollment.

First, these are some things that are not changing from last year:

• If you are enrolled in health insurance, you will be defaulted to the 70/30 health plan for 2024. You can only select the 80/20 plan during this Open Enrollment period.
• You will also need to answer the tobacco attestation question. Failure to answer this question will result in paying 60 more dollars a month in premiums.
• And if you want a flexible spending account in 2024 for either health care expenses or dependent day care expenses, you must enroll during open enrollment.

As a reminder, we now have two enrollment portals for making your benefits elections: One is the State Enrollment Portal and the other is the UNC System Enrollment Portal.

This year, you will use the State Enrollment Portal only for choosing your 70/30 or 80/20 health insurance and doing your tobacco attestation. You will not see the dental vision and other plans in the portal as you have in years’ past.

You will use the UNC System Enrollment Portal for enrolling in:

• Group term life insurance
• Dental
• Vision
• Flexible spending accounts
• Accident plans
• TRICARE supplemental coverage
• Accidental death and dismemberment
• Cancer plans
• and Critical illness plans.

Basically everything else other than health insurance.

Just like in years’ past, you’ll make your benefits selections by logging in to Connect Carolina Self-Service and selecting the My Benefits tile.

Then on the left you will see Benefits Enrollment.

Click the drop-down, and you will see the options for the two enrollment portals.

You can also call the State Enrollment Center at 855-859-0966 or the UNC System Enrollment Center at 833-862-1490 to complete your open enrollment over the phone.

Once you have completed your selections in both enrollment portals, be sure to scroll to the bottom of the final screen to click to save changes in the State Enrollment Portal and to accept changes in the UNC Enrollment Portal.

After you complete your changes in each portal, we recommend you print a copy or take a picture with your cell phone of your confirmation for both portals to keep for your records.

To make enrolling in your benefits as easy as possible, we have updated our UNC open enrollment website and created some helpful hints that guide you through both portals.

Visit go.unc.edu/enroll to view the guides that include screenshots for both portals.

Some good news for 2024 is that health insurance premiums are not increasing and there are no changes to any of the health plans.

There are a few changes to the state benefits NC Flex programs for dental, vision and flexible spending accounts:

• First, the dental insurance. Premiums for the high and low options will have an increase for 2024.
• The classic option premiums remain the same for the health care flexible spending account. The maximum contribution for 2024 is $3,050, and for the dependent day care flexible spending account, the family limit maximum remains at $5,000 for 2024.

Remember that the benefit selections you choose during this October enrollment period will go into effect January 1, 2024, and remain in effect through December 31, 2024.

Once the October enrollment period closes on the 27th, you cannot make changes until the next open enrollment period in October 2024 unless you experience qualifying life events like death, birth, marriage or divorce, outside of the open enrollment period again.

For more information about Open enrollment, visit go.unc.edu/enroll.

Your UNC benefits team is also happy to help with any questions —

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[Williams]

— and you can reach us by emailing us at benefits@unc.edu or calling us at 919-9623071.

Open Enrollment comes only once a year. We realize these changes may be a little challenging, but remember there are lots of resources to help you for open enrollment during October 9 through 27.

Let us know how we can help.