What is a Waive of Insurance?  

When you are Benefits Eligible, you will be offered insurance by Reliant and responsible to participate. This an offer that is regulated by governmental codes of the Affordable Care Act. When you accept insurance coverage through another person’s employment, you will be asked to “waive” your Reliant offer of insurance.  Reliant and its insurance providers have obligations to confirm that you are covered by allowable insurances. 

Therefore, when a Reliant family has both spouses employed and chooses the "Family" level of coverage or the "Empolyee + Spouse", one spouses "waives" their offer of insurance and is covered by the other employed spouse's coverage.  This can seem counter-intuitive.  Please bear with us, since we need to collect a waive form, even though you are are participating in Reliant's Insurance offering. 

A waive is a notice that we keep on file.  It indicates to us who is providing your insurance, who is the primary subscriber,  and it needs to be renewed each calendar year.  

Why am I considered a "Waive" when our family is covered by Reliant’s International Insurance?  

When the primary policy holder of your insurance is your Reliant employed spouse, you are technically considered a "waive" as relates to your individual employee offer of coverage.   When you and your spouse are both employed by Reliant, you have the option of choosing coverage as two individual employees, or as family unit.

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Selections may be renewed each year, and can be done by marking that selection on the annual Open Enrollment form. Changes of the structure of your plan can also be made at the time of any qualifying event like birth, marriage, loss of coverage, etc.  When needed, we may ask you to submit a form.  

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Are other waives are allowed for International Missionaries?  

Reliant’s Aetna International coverage is compliant with the Affordable Care Act.  Under ACA there are waives allowed when you are on the insurance coverage offered by the employer of a family member. Beyond these legal requirements, Reliant has additional requirements before you may waive our insurance for a family member’s plan . Namelywho is not participating in the Reliant coverages.  Namely, this waive option must be initiated and approved by the Partner Organization.  We require this due to the fact that your AETNA insurance also covers essential insurance for living in an international setting, including foreign medical coverage, medical evacuation coverage, repatriation of remains and others. These coverages go far beyond that which is required by the Affordable Care Act.  

While living overseas, most US plans will treat any medical needs as out-of-network, and make any expenses truly un-affordable.  In addition, our International Policies include medical evacuation, political evacuation, and other essential coverages for the International worker.    When someone actually encounters a need that is not covered, the entire team ministry can be adversely affected in trying to cover for the need.  Therefore, the Partner Organization must initiate and approve waives from our insurance. Many of Reliant’s teams partnerships would depend  on on those coverages and don’t have the resources needed to accommodate your hardship if something were to happen.  

Therefore, International Missionaries even though Reliant’s Aetna International coverage is compliant with the Affordable Care Act, Reliant international workers may utilize ACA allowed waivers only after their Supervisors and Partnerships have made arrangements previously with the International Program Team at Reliant. 

Waiver form

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