The company offers eligible Team Members the opportunity to purchase, through the Principal Insurance Company, additional life insurance benefits for themselves, their spouse/domestic partners, and their child(ren).  If you choose to purchase additional benefits under this option, you pay for the total cost of this coverage through after-tax payroll deductions.  If benefits need to be paid they are tax fee to the recipient.

Plan Design

The chart below shows you the amount of insurance you can purchase, the maximum benefit amount, and the amount of the Guarantee Issue, or “GI”.  When you are in your initial enrollment period (i.e. when you first become eligible for benefits as a newly hired employee or newly benefits eligible employee), the GI is the amount of insurance you can purchase regardless of your health status and without completing an Evidence of Insurability (or “EOI”) form.  If you purchase voluntary life insurance after your initial eligibility period, there is no GI, and you must complete an EOI form for all voluntary life insurance selections.

For example, if you purchase $200,000 of voluntary life insurance for yourself and $100,000 of life insurance for your spouse when you are first eligible for benefits as a newly hired employee, you would be guaranteed to receive $150,000 in coverage for yourself and $30,000 in coverage for your spouse. You and your spouse would each complete an EOI form for the remaining coverage. If the insurance company approves your application, the remaining coverage ($50,000 for you and $70,000 for your spouse) would become effective. If you decided to purchase this voluntary life insurance after your initial eligibility period (for example, during a subsequent Open Enrollment Period), no amount of the coverage would be guaranteed. You and your spouse would each need to complete an EOI form for the entire amount of coverage, and it would not be effective until the insurance company approved the coverage.

Additional rules affecting the benefit amounts apply to individuals aged 65 or older and children younger than 14 days old.  If you have any questions regarding how these provisions affect your insurance benefit, please contact Benny’s Café at 1-888-873-8326 for more information.

If you purchase supplemental life for your dependent(s), you are automatically the beneficiary.  If you purchase  voluntary life for yourself, you must designate a beneficiary.

Cost of Coverage

If you choose to purchase additional life benefits under this option, you pay for the total cost of this coverage through after-tax payroll deductions. The following chart shows representational rates for various coverage levels.  Coverage amounts between $150,000 and $200,000, and from $200,000 to $300,000, are not shown in the chart. Contact Benny’s Café if you wish to purchase voluntary life insurance in these coverage amounts. A service representative will assist you in determining the cost.

The cost for the insurance coverage is based on the amount of coverage and the age of the individual being covered.  For example, if you are a 36 year old team member want to purchase $200,000 in voluntary coverage for yourself and $90,000 in coverage for your 51 year old spouse, your cost per pay period (assuming you and your spouse both submitted EOI documentation and were approved by the insurance company) for this coverage would be:

Portability & Conversion

When you terminate employment, there are two options available to you to retain your supplemental life insurance coverage through either a portability feature or a conversion feature.  There are technical differences between these two methods of retaining these policies post-employment.  A Benny’s Café service representative can help explain the differences between the two and guide you through the process of either conversion or portability. 

Voluntary Forms:
Evidence Of Insurability Form (EOI)
Beneficiary Change Form
Portability Notice 
Portability Application
Portability Kit
Accelerated Death Benefit
Life Claim Packet (Accelerated Life Claim Form)