The University makes a sizeable investment in your benefits by paying a significant portion of the cost. You pay any balance through automatic deductions from your pay.

Each benefit plan has its own rate structure. The cost of each benefit for which you are eligible is included on Self Service > Benefits if you are a new faculty or staff member at the University, or on your Personal Enrollment Worksheet if you are a continuing employee who recently became eligible for benefits. In addition, each plan section in this Web site includes rate information that will help you determine the amount of your deductions. Contact the HR/Payroll Service Center if you have any question about rates.

Frequency of Deductions
If you are paid biweekly and you participate in benefits plans, payroll deductions for plans for which you pay a premium will be taken from your first two paychecks each month. If there are three pay dates in a month, no benefits deductions will be taken from the third paycheck, except that Retirement contributions will be taken from all paychecks.

If you are paid monthly, payroll deductions will be taken from each monthly paycheck.

Premium Conversion
Premium conversion is an Internal Revenue Service program that allows you to pay medical insurance premiums with pretax dollars or aftertax dollars. With pretax deductions, the premium is subtracted from your pay before federal, state, and FICA taxes are calculated. That reduces your taxable income and saves you money in taxes every payday.

• You will choose either a pretax or aftertax option for medical premiums when you make your benefits elections.

• Your dental and vision plan contributions are paid on a pretax basis through premium conversion.

• Your contributions for life insurance, legal coverage, and expanded long-term disability coverage are paid on an aftertax basis.

University Benefits   
Premium conversion does not reduce your pay for purposes of determining your life insurance, travel accident insurance, long-term disability, or retirement benefits provided by the University.

Social Security
If you earn less than the Social Security Wage Base, premium conversion will reduce your FICA taxes along with your income taxes. This means your future Social Security benefit may be slightly reduced. For most people, however, taxes saved now through premium conversion are greater than the reduction in future benefits.

Retroactive Contributions
Missed deductions for retroactive periods of coverage will be taken from your next available paycheck.

Other Qualified Adult Tax Information
Under federal tax law, group insurance and benefits provided to an other qualified adult (OQA) and his or her children generally will require taxation of the University contribution attributable to the partner and the partner's children. The tax on the imputed income will be deducted from the faculty or staff member's monthly or first and second biweekly paychecks of the month. The Tax Worksheet for Same-Sex Domestic Partner Benefits can help you calculate the approximate amount of additional taxes you would have to pay on the imputed income.

However, if the OQA and the OQA's children are declared as legal dependent exemptions on the faculty or staff member's most recent federal income tax return, the faculty or staff member can waive the taxation requirements. To do so, download and complete a Declaration of Tax Dependency form available from this Web site. If you have any questions, call the HR/Payroll Service Center at 734-615-2000 or 1-866-647-7657 (toll free).