FSA forfeiture - Dependent care

[caggio]

What is the name of your state? Connecticut

My story:

I was working for a company and I had 1K$ in an FSA for Dependant care.

I have left the company at the end of may.

I have sent a Claim for the 1K$ by mail in early July.

No response until last week (November)

I have decided to resubmit the claim again since I did not receive any response.

The response now is that my money was foirfaited after 60 days of my last day at work.

(Is it possible that they mismanage mail on porpouse?)

1- Since I have sent my claim by mail I do not have a receipt
2- My company did not inform me about the 60 days rule, (they have just added this note in the paperwork after seeing this problem)
3- Even if the first claim was sent within 60 days, since something went wrong with that piece of mail it seems that that does not count.

They did not have any notification protocol in place to advice me that my account was going to expire.

(Other service providers did send me the notification when other fringe benefits were going to expire)

Is there anything I can do within the law now?
Is there any regulation on notification of contract termination?

Thanks

 

[Beth3]

When you enrolled in the FSA and/or group health plan, chances are that you received a Plan Document with all the information regarding administration of the FSA Plan, which is required by law. It would have included the fact that a terminated employee has 60 days from their last day of employment to submit any eligible expenses for reimbursement.

Unfortunately, there's no way for you to prove that you did submit your child care expenses within that time frame. Since you've waited so long to address this, the FSA administrator has no other option but to deny your claim. If they don't, they will violated the Plan Rules and therefore federal law. Sorry.

 

[caggio]

is it OK for them to ...

Is it OK that they have never even tried to contact me to say that I still had money in their account?

Can they prove that they did not loose the piece of mail themselves? Can they prove that they did not do that on purpouse?

Thanks
Francesco

 

[cbg]

They are not required to contact you to say you still have money in the account. Presumably you are capable of knowing how much was deducted and how much you have applied for reimbursement.

They do not need to "prove" anything. There is absolutely no reason to believe that they deliberately lost it. You're coming close to slandering them, in case you want to know.

Your employer is limited by Federal law in what they can and cannot do. You're the one who waited months to address this. At this point, taking any action except denial of the claim would be a violation of the law. You waited too long.

 

[caggio]

Hi, this was my first ever FSA claim and I had no idea on how long it would have taken, this is why I just waited.

The law supposedly was changed in 2005 and I believe it allows up to 14 months after termination to file the claims. Is this correct?

 

[cbg]

Never heard of such a thing.