Open enrollment

Open enrollment (OE) is the period of time each year when eligible employees can waive or enroll in coverage, change plans, and add or remove dependents. The only times you can make these changes are at open enrollment or if you experience a qualifying life event, so choose your plans carefully.

If your company offers benefits through Gusto or uses the broker integration, Gusto emails all eligible employees when it’s time to choose coverage in Gusto.

Want help figuring out which plan is best for you? Check out this video where we cover the differences between plan types, common insurance terms, and examples of a few different individuals and the plan that best fits their situation.

Employers & admins: If your benefits are up for renewal, head to our renewal timeline for what to expect. For more guidance on preparing for renewal, check out our blog. If you want to start offering commuter benefits or new ancillary coverage (dental, vision, life, or disability), you can set these up in Gusto anytime.

What happens at renewal and open enrollment

Medical insurance carriers update their plans and premiums every year. If you have dental, vision, life, or disability coverage, the plans often stay the same, but the rates might change.
Employers choose what plans to offer at open enrollment. You can renew the default plans or change the carrier, the plans you offer, the company contribution, or the new hire waiting period.
Employees have a week of open enrollment to enroll in or waive coverage. You can keep or change your plan, and add or remove dependents. Gusto emails all eligible employees when it’s time to sign in and choose coverage in Gusto.

Find your renewal date

Not sure when your company’s benefits renew? If Gusto’s your broker, follow the steps below to find your renewal date. Your open enrollment will happen around this time—Gusto will contact benefits admins when it's time to kick off this process.

Employers & admins

Sign in to your Gusto admin account.
Go to the Benefits section.
Scroll to “Active benefits.” The plans listed under “Managed by Gusto” are the plans that we’ll manage your renewal and open enrollment for.
- If you have multiple lines of coverage and your company set them up at different times, they may have different renewal dates. We’ll ask you at your next renewal if you want to align the renewal dates.
On the Medical tile, click View.
Look at the “Effective dates” toward the right of your screen.
- The first date is the day that this coverage period began.
- The second date is the last day of coverage for this period. The day after that is your renewal date, which is when renewal/open enrollment changes will be effective. Open enrollment starts sometime before this date so we can process your changes with the carriers.

Check out the renewal timeline to learn more about what to expect in the lead-up to open enrollment. Gusto emails benefit admins when it’s time to sign in and choose which plans to offer your team at open enrollment.

Employees

If you’re not enrolled in coverage or another broker manages your company’s benefits, ask your employer for your company’s next renewal date.

If you’re enrolled in your company’s benefits:

Sign in to Gusto.
Go to the Benefits section.
On the “Medical” tile, click View.
Look at the “Coverage Period.”
- The first date is the day that this coverage began.
- The second date is the last day of coverage for this plan. The day after that is your renewal date, which is when the changes you make at open enrollment will be effective. Open enrollment starts sometime before this date so we can process your changes with the carriers.

Gusto emails all eligible employees when it’s time to sign in and make your selections in Gusto.

Video: Open enrollment webinar for admins

Check out this webinar for an overview of the open enrollment process and answers to frequently asked enrollment questions. Use the links in the table of contents below to find answers quickly.

Here's each topic that the webinar covers—click any link to be taken right to that section.

Open enrollment timeline
- When you'll hear from your onboarding advocate and how to contact them
- What to expect from the time you select your plan offerings until the insurance carrier confirms your coverage
Deductions and carrier billing
- When employee payroll deductions will begin
- Making payments to your insurance carrier
Demo: Find enrollment info in the open enrollment admin dashboard
- See your open enrollment dates
- Your application checklist and how to upload company documents
- Plan details and a cost breakdown
Open enrollment FAQs for admins
- Track your team's enrollment progress
- Why all employees, whether they're enrolling or waiving, need to complete open enrollment
- How we notify eligible new hires to enroll
Demo: How to enroll in or waive coverage
- For admins, how to enroll yourself in benefits by switching to your employee profile
- For employees, how to choose or waive coverage in Gusto
- If you're waiving coverage, why selecting a waiver reason is important to your company's benefits application
- View your enrollment status, plan details, and carrier contact info
Demo: the employee benefits dashboard
- Coverage and deduction details
- Carrier contact information
- If you experience a qualifying life event, how to change your benefits in Gusto
Demo: the admin benefits dashboard
- How to add more benefits
- Plan details and carrier contact info

Employee Form W-4s

In order to enroll in benefits, employees must have completed and signed their Form W-4 in Gusto.

Company tax forms

The insurance carriers may request more documents or information to process your application. If so, we'll email you and add the task to your application checklist in Gusto.

Here’s what forms you can expect to submit, based on your company type:

Company type	Tax form to provide
C-corp	Depends on the carrier—we'll let you know what the carrier requests
S-corp	Depends on the carrier—we'll let you know what the carrier requests
LLC taxed as a C-corp	Form 1120 or Schedule G
LLC taxed as a partnership	Form 1065 or Schedule K-1
Taxed as a single-member LLC	Form 1040 or Schedule C

Since Gusto does not generate your company’s tax forms, ask your accountant for help finding any of these forms.

If you received a tax extension last year, you can send last year’s form and a copy of your extension form.

Submit documents

If this task is on your application checklist in Gusto, your insurance carrier needs one or more documents to process your application. Here's how to submit a document:

Sign in to your Gusto admin account.
Go to the Benefits section.
Under "Your new benefits application," click Complete tasks.
Under "Application checklist," click the Upload documents task.
Click Upload document.
Click Select File to choose the document, or drag and drop your file.
- You can upload a .jpeg, .jpg, or .png up to a maximum file size of 20 MB.
Click Upload.
The "Status" column shows whether the document has been uploaded or accepted:
- Requested: We’re waiting on you to upload the document.
- Pending review: We’re taking a look to make sure the document meets the carrier’s requirements.
- Accepted: The document is good to go.
- Rejected: The document does not meet the carrier’s requirements. Take a look at the notes and re-submit.

New hires are automatically invited to enroll

Gusto invites all eligible new hires to enroll in benefits at the same time that they complete their new hire onboarding in Gusto.

What if open enrollment is already started/in progress/complete? Eligible new hires are automatically included in benefits regardless of the company’s open enrollment status.
How to view new hires' enrollment: you won’t see them listed in the company-wide open enrollment list, but you can view their enrollment status separately in their employee profile.
Do new hires have to follow the company-wide open enrollment deadline?: we can still move forward with your application even if there are new hires who haven’t chosen their plans yet.

Employee vs. admin profiles

If you’re an admin, make sure you switch to your employee profile to make your personal benefit selections.

Automatic open enrollment extensions

If your team hasn’t completed open enrollment by the scheduled end date and there’s enough time before the carrier’s submission deadline, Gusto automatically extends open enrollment. Employees who haven’t finished choosing coverage will keep receiving reminder emails.

If anyone does not complete enrollment: their current coverage, if any, renews as-is. If they are not enrolled in coverage, they will not be enrolled in renewal coverage. If they are enrolled in coverage and the renewal version of their current plan is still offered by your company, the coverage will be renewed for them and any currently enrolled dependents.

ID cards and approval after the effective date

The carriers can take several weeks to process coverage. If they approve coverage after the effective date has passed, this is known as retroactive approval.

Head to our article about member ID cards for next steps if employees need to access care while we wait for the insurance carrier to confirm their coverage. If the company’s switching carriers at renewal, it’s important that employees do not use their old carrier’s ID card after the effective date of the renewal has passed.

Adding other lines of coverage later

If you decide to offer another line of coverage (dental, vision, life, disability insurance) after open enrollment is complete, you can see quotes and add plans directly from your Gusto admin account. If your team was recently in open enrollment for other coverage, these quotes are available after the current benefits effective date has passed.

Open enrollment

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