Benefit Plan: Health and Dental Insurance – GSS

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Benefit Plan: Health and Dental Insurance

Benefit Plan: Health and Dental Insurance

If you have specific questions about your plan or what is covered, please visit StudentCare’s website, SFU Burnaby office in the Student Union Building (room 2301) or call their Care Centre toll free at 1-236-427-8123.

Important message about this year’s benefits: At its May 2024 meeting and upon advice from the Benefit Plan Committee, the GSS Council made the difficult decision to reduce some of the benefits offered in the GSS Benefit Plan in 2024-2025. This decision was necessary in part because of the strong inflationary pressures on the plan since 2022. At the same time, the number of claims made by our members in this period increased significantly and durably (following the return to in-person activities at the university). Although the GSS provided a significant subsidy to the plan in the 2023-2024 policy year and will provide another smaller subsidy in 2024-2025, this short-term approach cannot replace permanent long-term cost reductions or income increases. That is why the GSS is currently working towards a referendum of our members about a new flexible two-tier plan and pricing structure for the 2025-2026 policy year.

Graduate students who start their graduate programs in September or January of a given year are automatically enrolled into the Benefit Plan (May-start students must self-enroll for their first semester at SFU). The fees* for the full 2024-2025 academic is $500, but will be prorated if you start in the Spring or Summer semesters.

Complete information about the plan is available on the SFU Graduate Benefit Plan website. This includes details on submitting claims, opting out, and adding family coverage. To contact our plan provider (Studentcare), please visit their SFU Burnaby office in the Student Union Building (room 2301) or call their Care Centre toll free at 1-236-427-8123. You may find additional ways to contact Studentcare here.

If you have questions or concerns about the GSS Benefit Plan that are not addressed on the websites or by Studentcare representatives, please email the Director of Graduate Services.

* Fees for the plan are automatically charged to your student account along with graduate tuition and other fees. The fees are front-loaded for the full policy year (Sept-Aug) and charged to your student account in the Fall semester (or, for January-start students, coverage from Jan-Aug is charged to your account in the Spring semester).

In the Fall 2014 semester, Studentcare conducted a phone survey of GSS members. For the results of this survey, click here.

Request for Special Consideration

Please note: Official opt out and enrolment regulations and dates associated with the graduate student health and dental plan may only be found on the GSS Benefit Plan website. To find out more about your coverage, including how and when to opt out or enrol, follow the links below the “Coverage” section on the right of this landing page. Opt outs are granted only to those graduate students who can prove that they have equivalent coverage through another plan. The deadline to receive any change of coverage requests (including opt outs) is usually within the first half of the first month you are enrolled, but check the Change-of-Coverage Period section of Studentcare.ca for the exact dates.

Although the dates indicated in the above website are firm, if you were unable to opt out or enrol during the normal change of coverage period due to extraordinary circumstances, you may submit a Request for Special Consideration to the GSS Benefit Plan Committee using the following Request for Special Consideration Form. Note that simply forgetting the benefit plan deadlines or failing to monitor your student account of tuition and fees and/or your @sfu.ca student email account do not qualify as extraordinary circumstances. The GSS and the Benefit Plan Committee reserve the right to deny any request.

There are also deadlines for submitting a Request for Special Consideration, as follows:

Requests related to Fall semester enrolment must be submitted by November 30.
Requests related to Spring semester enrolment must be submitted by March 31.
Requests related to Summer semester enrolment must be submitted by July 31.

The Benefit Plan Committee meets once per month; thus, requests may not be reviewed for several weeks following submission depending on the scheduled meeting dates. Please see the Benefit Plan Committee page for more information about the committee’s structure and its mandate from GSS Council.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The medical system in Canada is quite complex. All BC residents should register for basic insurance (MSP) and get a Care Card. This type of basic coverage is not the same as the GSS Health & Dental Plan which is an extended benefits plan.

The breakdown of the Graduate Health Plan* and Graduate Dental Plan is available on the Studentcare website and is the same rate for both full- and part-time students (*This plan is often referred to as the Graduate “Medical” Plan). The cost of the Plan will be automatically included in your tuition and other fees.

YES! The GSS Benefit Plan is very inexpensive given the coverage provided. Note that the cost that you are paying in September is for 12-months of coverage. The GSS plan is much less expensive than comparable coverage one could buy personally. While the costs may be significant up-front, this is health insurance, so it is intended to help cover unexpected costs that could otherwise be financially disastrous for a student. Even the most healthy of students will see value in the plan given the generous dental coverage, vision coverage and included travel medical insurance!

Students can opt-in family members/spouses for an additional cost (not tied to tuition or fees) during the change-of-coverage periods online at StudentCare.

All students are automatically enrolled in the plan every September. Even if they opted themselves out of the plan previously, they are reassessed annually and need to opt-out or change coverage every year during the change-of-coverage period (e.g. provide proof of alternate coverage and request an opt-out with Studentcare during the change-of-coverage period which, usually in the first half of the month of September).

This opt-out system is used because we know that our members’ circumstances change – while you may have not needed coverage in the past (due to having coverage through a spouse, parent, or work), you may no longer have this coverage. The yearly opt-out confirmation avoids having graduate students find themselves without affordable coverage. Confirming you still do not need coverage is a very quick, online process – our records show that students are able to complete this process within about 2 minutes. If you need more information, please consult StudentCare’s change-of-coverage webpage for our program.

Students should first check online at StudentCare’s GSS/SFU webpage, which already contains a lot of information.

You can also call Studentcare at 236-427-8123, visit their SFU Burnaby office in the new Student Union Building (SUB 2301), or email them at service@studentcare.net. Do not contact the insurance company directly. If your questions or concerns have still not been addressed by StudentCare, please contact the GSS’s Director of Graduate Services by email at grad-services@sfugradsociety.ca.

We’re sorry when this happens and work proactively with StudentCare to address any systemic issues. If problems persist, please contact the Director of Graduate Services for assistance.