Employee Benefits

See below for help with:

• Personal Assistance/Counseling/Forms & Literature
• Basic Benefits Rules
• UC Benefits and BENCOM, Online Information Service Directories

Personal Assistance / Counseling / Forms & Literature

UC Berkeley Library employees may obtain benefits forms and literature from LHRD, and counseling assistance from the Library's "DBC." Every department should have a designated DBC, normally the payroll personnel manager or assistant.

Laurie Pangelina, Benefits Analyst
Library Human Resources Department (LHRD)
110 Doe Library (MC 6000) / CAMPUS
Phone: 510-642-3778
Email: lpangeli@library.berkeley.edu

Please email to schedule counseling appointments. If possible e-mail Laurie about what you'd like to discuss, in case preparation is advisable. It also never hurts to have a current paystub in hand when you come in.

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Basic Benefits Rules

Rule #1: When in doubt, ASK.

Rule #2: Ask? When? ALWAYS. And not later, NOW.

There's typically a 31-day deadline from the date of any personal, family, or employment status change, by which you must file to take advantage of benefits options: for instance, marriage or divorce; birth, adoption, or marriage of a dependent child; initial employment, termination of employment, or change in your (or your spouse's) employment status.

If you let this floating one-month window shut, you may permanently forfeit important benefit options - or incur substantial financial losses, without realizing it!

Nothing good happens automatically. If you think something might or should happen a certain way, you can probably be that it won't. Take all precautions, monitor your affairs, double-check behind you, and stay alert for administrative spitballs & pitfalls. You're' in charge!

Corollary: Read (or ask about) the fine print - before, not afterwards. Ask for more help if it doesn't make any sense.

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Online Information & Service Directories

UC Benefits/At Your Service

1. Find information via At Your Service online
• Health & Welfare Insurance Plans
• Payroll Savings Plans: 403(b) After Tax, Benham, IDS
• UCRP, PERS, Social Security/Medical
2. Contact Services by Phone:
• UC Benefits 24-Hour Automated Telephone Service:
  Call 1-800-493-4833
  (General & individual information, all benefit plans, Member Services numbers, current personal & family plan participation data.)
• UC Benefits Customer Service/At Your Service:
  Call 510-987-0651
  (Information on Savings Program return rates & individual account balances, 403 (b) MAC information, 403 (b) transactions, Retirement/Savings forms.)

Financial Planning Help

• Find information online via Fidelity
• Fidelity Investments Planning Tools
• Finding Professional Financial Advice
• Do-It-Yourself "Forecasting"

Lost your PIN? Can't get in!
As UC Benefits mounts more & more information on round-the-clock, automated systems, knowing your access PIN will become ever more important - eventually essential - to managing your benefits affairs. To use these services you must have a touch-tone phone, and be prepared to enter your Social Security # and 4-digit Personal Identification Number (PIN). If you're newly hired, then you'll be assigned a temporary PIN of four zeros (0000), which you may use initially to access BENCOM, then immediately choose a personal PIN that you'll remember.

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