Seasonal layoffs break continuous coverage. That is a plan design question.
General contractors, trades and specialty subcontractors. Michigan winters interrupt the workforce, and the benefits program has to survive the interruption without restarting everyone’s eligibility.
Written for a workforce that stops in January and starts again in April.
What is actually true in construction
- A seasonal layoff can force returning employees back through a waiting period unless the plan’s rehire and eligibility language is written for it.
- On prevailing-wage work the benefits contribution can count toward the fringe obligation, which changes the economics of offering a richer plan.
- If part of the workforce is covered by a multiemployer trust, you are running two populations and only control one of them.
- Crews move between jobsites and states, so enrollment and network adequacy are both mobile problems.
What CFH does about it
- Writes eligibility and rehire language that survives a seasonal layoff.
- Structures the plan so the contribution works against the fringe obligation where prevailing wage applies.
- Keeps the non-bargained plan coherent alongside whatever the trust provides, and says which levers you do not control.
- Runs enrollment at the jobsite, on the shift.
Four sizes, four different problems.
Find your headcount. What changes at that size in this industry, and what we do about it.
There is no employer mandate below fifty, but COBRA obligations begin at twenty employees and a seasonal workforce reaches that quickly.
What we do about it: Sets rehire and eligibility rules that hold through the winter, and prices the market annually.
Applicable-large-employer status is measured on the prior calendar year, so a busy season creates an obligation a year later, in a slower one.
What we do about it: Runs the look-back against your real seasonal pattern so the obligation is not a surprise.
Claims become credible, and a trades workforce’s claims concentrate in musculoskeletal injury and imaging.
What we do about it: Models funding on your own claims and targets the categories actually driving them.
Multiple regions, multiple jobsites and often a mix of bargained and non-bargained crews.
What we do about it: Runs one program across the regions and keeps the bargained and non-bargained sides clearly separated.
The three things employers in this sector ask us first.
What happens to coverage during a winter layoff?
It depends on how your eligibility and rehire language is written. Done properly, returning crews do not restart a waiting period.
Can our benefits contribution count toward the prevailing wage fringe?
On covered work, yes, where the plan is structured for it — which changes what a richer plan actually costs you.
We have union and non-union crews — can one broker handle both?
Yes for the plan you control. Where a multiemployer trust provides the bargained benefits we manage around it and tell you which levers are not yours.
Send us your renewal.
We’ll tell you whether it looks competitive, where we see opportunity, and the five questions we’d put to your carrier. No cost, and no obligation to move anything.
The renewal letter
Your current plan summary
Contribution split by tier
Enrolled counts by tier
Four documents — two more if your group is 50 or more. Nothing else; every extra one is a reason to postpone.
An independent employee benefits consulting firm. We look at the entire benefits program — cost, plan performance, risk and administration.
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
248.370.8853
719.425.2649
281.404.5670
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