One of the biggest advantages of working for a company that offers a Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement (QSEHRA) is the opportunity to get reimbursed for your individual insurance premiums.
You don’t need an insurance policy to participate in the QSEHRA—or to be reimbursed for other eligible medical expenses—but having one is helpful. Besides the obvious advantages of being insured, having major medical coverage—or minimum essential coverage (MEC)—entitles you to tax-free reimbursement of all QSEHRA-eligible expenses.
While it’s possible to get MEC in other ways (through a spouse’s group insurance policy, for example), many QSEHRA participants gain qualifying coverage through an individual insurance policy.
If you don’t already have an individual insurance policy, you’ll need to purchase one and attest to that purchase to start getting tax-free reimbursement of your premium payments and other medical expenses.
Unfortunately, simply becoming eligible for a QSEHRA doesn’t entitle you to a Special Enrollment Period (SEP). If your company implements a QSEHRA outside of the open enrollment period, you’ll need a qualifying life event to purchase an individual insurance policy.
In this post, we’ll go over qualifying life events, how to verify them through your local exchange, and how to use that policy to access tax-free reimbursement through the QSEHRA.
