Meet Benefits Administration
HR's Benefits Administration Team is one of four teams within the Benefits Department that exists to administer health, prescription, dental, life insurance, flexible spending, and voluntary benefits options for MSU faculty, staff, retirees, and students. This team takes great pride in helping all benefits-eligible individuals understand their benefits options and frequently works with various benefits vendors behind the scenes to research and resolve any questions or problems you may experience related to benefits. When you call the Solutions Center at 517-353-4434 or email
SolutionsCenter@HR.msu.edu
with a benefits question or problem, it is the Benefits Administration team that responds to help. Other work this team is responsible for includes, but is not limited to:
- Planning and staffing in-person and online open enrollment fairs and events for employee, retiree, and student benefits plans
- Working with the MSU Communications team and each of our plan vendors to review and vet a variety of materials, including Open Enrollment Guides, vendor-provided plan flyers, brochures, and other materials
- Attending regularly scheduled meetings with plan vendors to monitor the smooth operations of various plans and learn about any changes going on with our vendors that could impact MSU’s experience
- Participating in new employee orientations to ensure incoming employees understand their benefits and how to enroll
- Reviewing documentation that is required to add dependents to plans, assessing each requested addition against policies, laws, and plan rules to ensure eligibility before processing the additions they approve
- Reviewing and approving requests to change benefits outside of open enrollment in alignment with Qualifying Life Event federal rules
- Doing the first review of benefits exception requests and making initial recommendations for approving or denying requests in alignment with law, policy, and plan rules
Chances are, at some point, you have met or benefited from the work of the Benefits Administration team. We are doing our part to achieve MSU’s teaching, research, and outreach mission by doing our best to make sure faculty, staff, retirees, and students are supported with great benefits programs while they learn, teach, research, and change the world!
