Inside Iowa State Oct. 13, 1995 _____________ Benefits Office: Several Changes To Note The university employee benefit programs continue to evolve and change. Following is a summary of recent or imminent changes. --Effective July 1, the university's Group Long Term Disability policy with the Principal Mutual company was changed to allow for a partial disability benefit. The policy change allows an employee who can work 70 percent or less to receive partial disability benefits. As soon as final wording of the provision has been reached (it needs to be legally acceptable to the state of Iowa), revised benefit booklets will be printed and distributed. --Effective Oct. 1, ISU adopted the new TIAA-CREF Real Estate account, available for both basic TIAA and SRA investments. Employees may invest any percentage of their contributions and accumulations in this account. TIAA will soon distribute a general announcement about the availability of the account. --Effective Nov. 1, the state of Iowa will require that a "managed care" process be followed for worker's compensation medical claims. When details have been finalized, explanatory meetings will be held for administrators and supervisors. --Effective Jan. 1, 1996, the employee-required contribution to basic TIAA-CREF (approximately 5 percent of a salary) will become tax deferred for all participants. Currently, about 98 percent of all participants defer taxes on their required contributions. This adjustment to the TIAA-CREF participation rules complies with federal pension non-discrimination requirements scheduled to become effective in 1997 and 1999. The change also will bring ISU in line with other regents institutions and the state of Iowa in the treatment of employee pension contributions. --The State Board of Regents recently passed rules designed to improve the cash available from TIAA-CREF at retirement. Details have not been worked out, but the maximum amount of cash available at retirement will be increased from the current 20 percent to 33 1/3 percent. Also, employees will be allowed to transfer funds at the time of retirement to other retirement programs authorized by the regents. Source: Gary Wiggins, Benefits, 294-7680 _____ University Relations Iowa State University