Life Events: Letting People Change Cover When Life Actually Changes
Marriage, a baby, a divorce, life doesn't wait for open enrolment. Configure life events well or generate manual exceptions all year.
Life doesn't run on your enrolment calendar. People marry, have babies, divorce, lose a spouse's cover, and each is a moment they need to change their benefits. Configure life events properly and it self-serves. Skip it and every one becomes a manual HR exception.
Map the events that actually change eligibility
Marriage, birth, adoption, divorce, dependent aging out, loss of other coverage, these are the real triggers. Configure each with the changes it permits and the window to make them.
Set the evidence and approval rules
Some changes need proof, a birth certificate, a marriage record. Decide what's required and whether it's checked before or after the change takes effect, and build that into the flow.
Mind the payroll knock-on
A benefit change from a life event changes deductions. Make sure the event flows cleanly to payroll so the next payslip's right, without someone keying it by hand.
Real scenario: a client had no life-event config, every new baby meant an email to HR, a manual plan change, and a manual payroll adjustment. Errors crept in constantly. We built the life-event framework so parents self-served the change and it flowed to payroll automatically. HR's exception pile shrank and the payslips came out right. Let the system handle life.