Maintaining accurate and up-to-date records, keeping employees’ personal information confidential and secure, and maintaining appropriate control over who has access to the group’s benefit plan. When it comes to benefit plan hygiene, these are the top three responsibilities and plan administrators play the lead role. The plan administrator portal makes this simple, fast, and easy.
Accurate and up-to-date records
Accuracy of records is critical to ensuring that benefits based on employee salary are paid out as expected and there are no surprises in the event of a claim. If a raise is given or number of hours is changed but not recorded, disability benefits, for example, will be calculated based on the data recorded in our system. At the same time, if someone leaves the company but this is not recorded, customers will continue to be billed as if they were still employed.
Confidential and secure employee information
Protecting the privacy and the confidentiality of plan members’ personal information is fundamental to how Empire Life does business. When and how we share personal information respects Canada’s privacy laws and best practices. By using the plan administrator portal, plan administrators safeguard plan members’ information because our system encrypts information that’s transmitted and stored.
Appropriate control over plan access
For security purposes, each plan administrator or user account on the plan administrator portal should be linked to a unique email address. Customers are responsible to keep the list of plan administrators up to date. Once set up on the system, plan administrators remains on the policy until Empire Life is advised to remove them.
The following points recap why it’s so important to keep lists of plan administrators up to date:
- Plan members’ personal information including beneficiary designations (but not detailed claims information) is accessible for viewing and changing by the plan administrator
- A plan administrator is able to view and update employee information regarding the group policy until they are removed as a plan administrator.
- As a policy holder, you can decide which divisions are accessible by each plan administrator.
- By setting up users for the group administrator portal, the policy holder agrees to the Terms and Conditions for Online Administration of Policy which is binding to the policy holder, their successors and permitted assigns.
Not sure if your list of plan administrators is still up to date? Send this completed and signed form to group.administration@empire.ca to update your list of plan administrators.
Are all your plan administrators getting our Group Bulletins and Quarterly Updates? If someone is unsubscribed they can reactivate their subscription to our important updates, simply by sending an email to group.marketing@empire.ca.