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Health Insurance Requirements for Retirement
You must meet all three eligibility requirements in order to continue your health insurance coverage:
1. Complete the minimum service period
First, you must have completed a minimum service period which is determined
by the date on which you last entered State service.
- If you were last hired before April 1, 1975, you must have had at least five years of benefits-eligible State service.
- If you were last hired on or after April 1, 1975, you must have
had at least 10 years of benefits-eligible State service.
- Less than full-time employment: Periods of less-than-full-time employment
will be considered as full-time if you were eligible for health insurance.
- Periods of employment in which you did not meet the eligibility requirements will not be counted.
- Periods when you were paying both the employer share and employee share of the NYSHIP premium as an active employee or while on leave without pay do not count toward the minimum service requirement.
*For UUP and MC employees benefits eligibility is calculated on annual salary for professional non-teaching employees, and a course load of at least two courses for faculty.
2. Satisfy requirements for retiring as a member of a retirement
system
If you are not a member of a retirement system administered by the State, or you are enrolled in one of the SUNY optional retirement programs (ORP) such as the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF), you must satisfy one of the following conditions:
- You must meet the age requirement of the Employees' Retirement System retirement tier in effect at the time you last entered service*
*Age 55
or
- You must be qualified to receive Social Security disability payments.
3. Be enrolled in NYSHIP
Third, you must be enrolled in NYSHIP as an enrollee or a dependent
at the time of your retirement.
