COBRA without payment? -

I recently was offered a new job and will be leaving my job later this month. There will be about 5 weeks between my last day and my first day at the new job. I will be vacationing/SCUBA diving and definitely want insurance for those 5 weeks. I talked to my current HR rep, and they told me that I dont have to pay anything, and that I am automatically covered under COBRA. If anything goes wrong and I need medical help, I can pay for COBRA (after any medical procedure)and it will cover be like having the same insurance since the last day of employment. This sounds very sketchy to me, so I wanted to see if anyone who has experience can tell me if this is truthful. Obviously the worst case scenario would be to not pay, need insurance and find out that the HR rep was wrong. Any advice? Thanks... Yes Ohh.. It leaves one with an eerie feeling (I know this because I'm a cancer survivor and literally can't get individual health insurance), but there's an acceptable and pretty long time lag before you have to pay for your Cobra. From Ernesto's link: "Employers must notify their plan administrators within 30 days after an employee's termination or after a reduction in hours that causes an employee to lose health benefits." So that gives you a possible 30 days not to pay to begin with. "The plan administrator must provide notice to individual employees of their right to elect COBRA coverage within 14 days after the administrator has received notice from the employer" There's another 14 days you might have before receiving paperwork. "You must respond to this notice and elect COBRA coverage by the 60th day after the written notice is sent or the day health care coverage ceased, whichever is later." That means you might have up to 60+14+30 days to choose your Cobra (I never advise waiting til the last minute if you need it though) "The initial premium payment must be made within 45 days after the date of the COBRA election" So now you might have up to the above 104 days + 45 days to pay. When it does come time to pay though, you will need to cover those past days w/payment if you elect to take Cobra. Again, this can make one feel in a weird limbo, but that's the way it works, and there's strict rules / penalties if your company doesn't get paperwork to you in a timely manner. On the brightside, there can be cool benefits to this time lag. Say you have another insurance lined up but you need to wait 60 days.. then you can cop out from the Cobra if nothing happened to you. It can be like a sort of unpaid time protection. I liked it because I had my boyfriend on as a domestic partner and didn't want to elect Cobra for him.. so by holding out, it was like an extra 60 free days of insurance if something happened to him. That is correct. What they are saying is that they will send the COBRA packet to you. You have so many days to sign up and return it WITH payment. If you do not return packet in time with payment than COBRA will be declined. The coverage is seamless. If you use the insurance on the 5th day after you quit but don't pay for 35 days because you don't have the packet it will be covered. I did this with my last employer. I doubt you would be covered after your last day if you haven';t officially signed up for the COBRA insurance - payment might not be required, but I would think some kind of paperwork would be in your best interest, because they might not even get the first invoice to you for 4- weeks if you're lucky - get someone in HR to sign off on it guaranteeing you coverage - or at least give HR a check for the first months amount, just in case before you leave I agree, it doesn't make sense. GET IT IN WRITING. Becuase they're wrong, you're not. You have 30 days to accept or decline cobra, from the time it's offered. You have to pay, back to day one. There's no leeway on that 30 days. And if, for example, you have a bad accident on vacation, and miss the packet that got mailed to you because you were hospitalized and couldn't send it back by the deadline. . . you're uninsured. Just a quick note on SCUBA....a lot of insurances have a clause that they will not pay for SCUBA related injuries (ie a decompression chamber visit). But, you can purchase Dive Insurance from DAN. Pretty good deal and they cover stuff like transportation to hospitals/decompression chambers and expenses associated with it. If you are worried about getting hurt while diving, you might want to check it out. My husband is a union construction worker. He was laid off and his insurance ended on October 1st. He has the option to pay for cobra, which we are completing now. He has up until the 15th of december to make the payment. Once the payment is made the effective date is retroactive back to October 1st. Any any medical bills he has inccured since October 1st til now would be retroactivly covered. That is how it was explained to us. We live in IL. Hope this helps I think your HR rep sounds correct-ish. With COBRA you have up to 60 days after you leave to sign up. SOOO, if you leave the company and the company paid benefits run out THEN you get hurt, you'd be able to apply for COBRA and have coverage applied retroactively to your benefit ending date and it would get paid. Now if you don't need any treatment, then there's no need for the COBRA coverage. For the straight poop: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consume... cobra is not a given you must pay for it in full and the company will probably chg you a small fee for handling, don't rely on your current employeer to pay for it. monthly insurance cost range from 250-1000 a month why would employeer pay that after you have terminate your employment. no the worse situation is you could have a major medical bill will in excess of the monthly premium that could cost thousands and not have insurance that you will have to pay for it. You sound smart so be smart pay for the insurance and protect yourself no matter what the hr IDIOT SAYS.