Birth of Dependent Child

The birth of a child should be a joyful event for your family. However, the realization that your child will be under your direct care for almost two decades can be a cause for stress. The planning and care begin even before your child is born, as soon as you know you are expecting. Although you will be busy with day-by-day adjustments to your life immediately after your child is born, you should start considering long range concerns for the future, including savings and college financing. Parents with more than one child also have decisions to make dealing with optimizing the use of family resources to provide for their aging, changing and growing family. At this time, your benefit plans become increasingly vital to your family’s well being. Accordingly, a review of your benefit plans is certainly in order at this time.

Plan Checklist

• You must register your new child with the Fund office within 30 days after (s)he is born. When registering your child, you must provide copies of his/her birth certificate and Social Security card.  Your child will not be covered for claims arising more than 30 days prior to the date (s)he is registered with the Fund office.
• You may want to review your designation of beneficiary for the life insurance under the Health & Benefit Fund. If you are unmarried, you may also want to review your designation of beneficiary forms for the Pension Fund, Annuity Fund and 401(k) Fund.
• Review the rules for coordination of benefits. Coordination of benefits rules govern who will have the primary coverage for your child if both you and your spouse have group health coverage.
• If you think you might be taking Family/Maternity/Paternity Leave, contact the Fund office to find out about how your benefits may be affected.