What Must I Consider When Manually Changing a Flex Benefit?

How you stop or change benefits under a flex plan depends on how the benefit plans are set up.

If your benefit plans with negative contributions are treated separately, or your benefit plans with positive contributions do not spend flex credits, each benefit plan under the flex plan is independent. Therefore, stopping one benefit does not affect other benefits.

If the benefits with negative contributions are combined as one total or benefits with positive contributions spend flex and pretax dollars, the order in which you stop flex benefits is important.

After you free flex credits by stopping a benefit that spends flex credits, or by changing a benefit so it spends fewer flex credits, you can change other benefits to spend flex credits rather than pretax dollars.

If your flex plan lets an employee change his or her benefits multiple-times during a flex plan year, it is recommended that you stop and reenter all of an employee's benefits each time an employee's benefit changes. By doing so, you can easily see which benefits are in effect during each flex benefit period and how flex credits were spent.