College Insurance program (CIP):
The basics

 
The College Insurance Program (CIP) was established by a 1997 act to provide health insurance coverage for community college retirees, their dependants, all surviving spouses on survivors annuity and community college employees on a disability benefit from SURS.  It is one of several different state health insurance plans administered by CMS, Central Management Services, of the state of Illinois. These include other teacher retiree health insurance plans, and plans covering State University employees and other state employees.  All these plans have very different scopes and provisions from CIP and must not be confused with each other. Currently CCC retirees are the only teacher retirees in Illinois not covered by some state health insurance plan.

The basic law setting up CIP is found at Chapter 5 Illinois Compiled Statutes 375, Section 6.9, cited as 5 ILCS 375/6.9.  Click here for the full text of the law.  This law states that the retiree and his/her surviving spouse are to shoulder ¼ of the cost of his/her own insurance and his/her dependents the TOTAL cost of theirs by paying premiums. (Note). The other cost for the retiree’s or surviving spouse's or other benefit recipient's insurance (75%) is to be shared  by the local Board, the State, and the active employees to provide for which the act mandates a ½% deduction from the full-time active employees’ pay a ½ % of full time payroll contribution from the local Board and an equal amount from the State.  It also provides that the local Board can “pick up” the ½ % contribution mandated for the active employees, if it wishes. [ Sec 6.10 (a)]

 The law further provides: “This Act does not prohibit any community college district from offering additional health benefits for its retirees or their dependents or survivors.” [Sec. 6.9(i)].

All contributions and retiree, survivors and dependents premiums are paid into a Community College Health Insurance Security Fund administered by CMS.  The state's contribution is statutorily determined by the projection made by the Illinois Community College Board, in November of the year preceding the start of the fiscal year (July 1st), of what the Illinois full-time community college payroll will be in the coming fiscal year.  (For now this excludes the City Colleges payroll of course.)  Half a percent of this amount is then certified to the state by SURS as being the state's  required contribution for the year.  There is no evidence that, so far, the state has not made its required contribution.  CMS determines premiums and negotiates the insurance contracts in accordance with the law. CIGNA is the current insurance carrier for the PPO portion of the coverage.

The rate for a couple is the sum of the subsidized rate for the retiree and the unsubsidized rate for the dependent spouse.  If there are other dependents, such as dependent children or parents the rates for these are also added in.  These separate rates are dependent upon both the age and Medicare eligibility of the retiree and the dependent spouse or other dependents respectively.  Whenever a retiree dies, his/her dependent surviving spouse leaves his/her unsubsidized dependent status and becomes a benefit recipient entitled to a 75% subsidy. Also, all surviving spouses of  ACTIVE employees, who are on a survivor's annuity, are entitled to participate in CIP at a 75% subsidized premium.  Finally, all active employees who are getting a disablity benefit from SURS are also entitled to participate in CIP at a 75% subsidized premium as long as they are on the disability benefit.  The complete CIP table of premiums can be found by clicking here.

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