Central Texas Conference churches that have pastors and/or lay employees participating in the HealthFlex health plan will receive a “premium holiday” this October, November and December due to rate reductions and claims experience rebates. Billing statements will be sent as usual during this time, but will show a $0.00 amount for health insurance. Payments for insurance premiums that are past-due are expected to continue during the holiday period.
Churches that have pastors and/or lay employees who pay a portion of their health insurance premiums will need to make payroll adjustments - ether by eliminating the withholding deduction or reversing some other type of salary-reduction arrangement. For the last three months of the calendar year, these employees will have an increase in their take home pay, which will also increase the taxable amount shown in the year-end W-2, Box 1 amount. Increasing the taxable income also means that churches will have to re-calculate the federal income tax and social security/Medicare tax payroll withholdings for lay employees.
The premium holiday only applies to the HealthFlex Active and Pre-65 Plan premium and DOES NOT apply to the Extend Health HRA funding contributions billed to the church, the Café Plan premiums or pension, which will still be billed during the "premium holiday" period detailed above.
For questions, please contact the CTC Benefits Administration office at 817-877-5222 or shawn-marie@ctcumc.org