Benefits Eligibility, Enrollment & Qualified Events

Twice a month, a member of the Benefits team leads a Benefits Information Meeting for new hires to learn more about their RIT Benefits. Sessions are held the:

• first Wednesday of the month from 9:30-11:30, in-person on campus and,
• third Monday of the month from 1:30-3:30 via zoom.

You will receive an outlook invite for the session closest to your hire date. If you need to attend a different session, contact the RSC to change your scheduled date. 

2024 Benefit Information Meetings

If you are covering a family member, please submit a copy of your family member verification document(s) through the Family Member Verification service request within 31 days of your date of hire. Failure to submit this documentation will result in cancellation of your family member(s) enrollment. For more details, refer to the Family Member Verification Process.

Once your benefits enrollment has been processed in Oracle, you will receive an email that your online benefits enrollment is available for you to complete.

To begin, you need to log into Oracle Employee Self Service. This enrollment process must be completed, even if you are declining each benefit offered by RIT.

Once logged in to Oracle Employee Self-Service, click on RIT Employee Benefits Enrollment to begin the process. When prompted, you will need to enter a Benefits Effective Date, which is the first of the month on or after your date of hire. DO NOT START THE ONLINE PROCESS UNLESS YOU ARE READY TO COMPLETE IT. If you go in and out of the system, it will create enrollment errors. 

Please review your options and make your choices carefully. Submissions through this portal are final. You will not be able to make any changes to your elections until the next Open Enrollment period, held each fall, for a January 1 effective date. Qualifying mid-year changes are allowed provided you notify HR within 31 days of the qualifying event. Please see Qualified Events below. 

If you do not take action within 31 days of your date of hire, you will not be enrolled in medical, dental, vision, Beneflex, supplemental life/AD&D, LTD, Legal or ID Theft coverage.

In addition to completing your online enrollment, you should: 

1. Complete the process to name a beneficiary for your RIT life insurance.
2. Enroll in the RIT Retirement Savings Plan, including naming a beneficiary for your account.

Certain life events enable you to make changes to your health benefits and change your dependent coverage during the year.

Qualifying life event changes include:

• marriage or divorce,
• new or termination of domestic partnership, 
• birth or adoption of your child,
• legal guardianship
• death of a family member (spouse/partner or child),
• change in your employment status, i.e., from part-time to full-time, full-time to part-time, adjunct to full-time)
• gain of insurance through your spouse's (or equivalent's) employment,
• loss of your spouse's (or domestic partner's) medical, dental and/or vision coverage, and
• an eligible dependent's gain or loss of medical, dental and/or vision coverage.

Mid-year qualifying event benefit changes must be received within 31 days after the life event change occurred along with appropriate documentation. They should be submitted through the Change Benefits for Regular Employee or Change Benefits for Adjunct Employee service request.  Documentation verifying the date of event must accompany the change of status form. Benefits will be updated as of that date.

IMPORTANT! If you miss the 31 day window to elect your benefit changes, you will need to wait until the next Open Enrollment period to make changes to your benefit elections. 

Full Qualifying Events Outline

RIT has a Family Member Verification (FMV) process to ensure that only those people who are eligible for benefits are covered and that the proper tax status is applied. It is important that RIT and employees are spending money as intended and that required taxes are paid.

Employees should submit their documents through Family Member Verification service request upon their mid-year qualifying event. 

Submission of  the eligibility verification documents only need to be provided once regardless of future benefit plan enrollments. 

• Your legally married spouse
• Certified (through RIT) Domestic Partner
• The child of the employee or the employee’s spouse who is under age 26
• The child of the employee’s domestic partner who is under age 26 (NOTE: if the child is not claimed as a dependent on the employee’s federal income tax return, this benefit will be taxable)
• The foster child (under age 18) of the employee, defined as an individual who is placed with the employee by an authorized placement agency or by judgment decree, or other court order
• Any other child who is under age 26, and
  • for whom the employee is the legal guardian or custodian, and
  • who resides in the employee’s home, and
  • who is claimed as a tax dependent on the employee’s federal income tax return

Domestic Partners are not eligible. 

Legally married spouse and certified (by RIT) domestic partner can be covered under the Dependent Spouse Life and/or Spouse AD&D insurance 

A child of the employee, an employee’s spouse or domestic partner who is under age 26 and unmarried (does not necessarily have to be a tax dependent) can be covered under the Child Life and/or Child AD&D.

NOTE: If an employee and their spouse/domestic partner are both eligible for dependent life and AD&D, only one can only one can cover the children for Child Life and AD&D. An employee who is eligible for Basic Life through RIT cannot be covered under another employee's spouse life and AD&D coverage. 

Tuition Waiver

• Your legally married spouse or certified (by RIT) domestic partner
• The child of the employee, the employee’s spouse, or the employee’s domestic partner who is under age 30
• Any other child who is under age 30, and
  • for whom the employee is the legal guardian or custodian, and
  • has been the legal guardian or custodian for at least three years prior to the date on which the child begins using the educational benefit, and
  • who resides in the employee’s home, and
  • who is claimed as a tax dependent on the employee’s federal income tax return.

NOTE: If a child has matriculated in a program before the age of 30, he/she would be eligible for Tuition Waiver to complete that same degree program started (not a different program) through the academic quarter in which the child attains age of 35. There will be no Tuition Waiver available beyond age 35.

*Each year that a student is receiving a tuition waiver at RIT, you must apply for the waiver and provide updated tax documentation for the prior tax year. 

Tuition Exchange and Tuition Scholarship

• The child of the employee, the employee’s spouse, or the employee’s domestic partner who is under age 30
• Any other child who is under age 30, and
  • for whom the employee is the legal guardian or custodian, and
  • has been the legal guardian or custodian for at least three years prior to the date on which the child begins using the educational benefit, and
  • who resides in the employee’s home, and
  • who is claimed as a tax dependent on the employee’s federal income tax return.

*Each academic year that a student is receiving Tuition Exchange, they must be recertified by RIT and the prior year's tax documentation is required. Each semester that a student is eligible for Tuition Scholarship, you must apply for the benefit and provide the most recent tax documentation for that academic year. 

For more details, see the Education Benefits page. 

In order to qualify for domestic partner benefits, both partners must sign an Affidavit of Domestic Partnership certifying that the following attributes of a domestic partner relationship are all present:

• The individuals have an exclusive mutual commitment, similar to that of a marriage
• The individuals are each other’s sole domestic partner and intend to remain so indefinitely
• Neither partner is legally married
• Neither individual is related by blood to a degree of closeness which would prohibit legal marriage in the state in which the partners legally reside
• Both individuals are at least 18 years of age and are legally competent to contract
• The individuals are currently residing together and have resided together in a common household for at least 12 consecutive months and intend to reside together indefinitely
• At least 12 months have elapsed since the termination of a Declaration of Domestic Partnership or its equivalent in any jurisdiction
• Both individuals are committed to the physical, emotional, and financial care and support of each other and share with each other the common necessities and tasks of one household and are financially interdependent.

Applying for a Domestic Partnership

An employee who wants to obtain coverage for his or her domestic partner must have a domestic partner agreement that legally binds an employee and his or her domestic partner to joint responsibility for their common welfare and financial obligations. Executing and filing a Statement of Domestic Partnership with the City Clerk of the City of Rochester or filed with the government of any other jurisdiction, or an Affidavit of Domestic Partnership is acceptable documentation. The benefits staff in the Human Resources Department may request you to produce a copy of this agreement or other information that indicates financial interdependency, such as joint bank accounts or joint liability on mortgages or other debt.

1. Submit an Affidavit of Domestic Partnership.
2. Within 31 days following filing the affidavit, Application for Domestic Partner Benefits to add them to your benefits.

Termination of a Domestic Partnership

When a domestic partnership relationship, as defined above, ceases to exist because it no longer has one or more of the necessary elements, the employee must notify RIT by submitting a Statement Termination of Domestic Partnership service request within 31 days of this change. 

The benefit coverage for the former domestic partner and the children of the former domestic partner will cease at the end of the month in which the termination of the domestic partner relationship ends as indicated on the Statement Termination of Domestic Partnership.  In the event of a termination of domestic partnership, the former domestic partner and children are eligible to continue coverage similar to the COBRA continuation.

Under IRS rules, if an individual, such as a domestic partner, qualifies as a tax dependent of the employee, the RIT-provided value of the benefits will not be treated as taxable income and the employee can pay for the benefit with before-tax dollars. In all other cases, probably most situations,

• the employee can continue to pay the contribution for his/her individual coverage (or two person, one parent family, or family if covering eligible children) with before-tax dollars, and
• the employee will have taxable income equal to the value of the benefit provided by RIT, called “imputed income“ if applicable, and
• the employee contribution amount in excess of the individual coverage contribution amount (or two person or one parent family if applicable) will be paid with after-tax dollars.

Example: If an employee in Salary Level 2 with POS B changes from Individual coverage to Two Person coverage to cover the domestic partner (who is not a dependent on the employee’s tax return), the tax consequences, on a monthly basis, are as follows:

(1) Amount employee pays with before-tax dollars.
(2) Amount added to taxable income.
(3) Amount employee pays with after-tax dollars.

Under Section 117(d) of the Internal Revenue Code, undergraduate tuition waiver benefits are provided tax-free for the employee, employee’s spouse, and employee’s dependent son, step-son, daughter or step-daughter. Tuition waiver benefits provided for any other individual (e.g., domestic partner) will be subject to tax.