Canada Life – Health and Dental Coverage Update

This is the latest information provided to the Union from the Company regarding the issues people are having with their health benefit coverage

As you are aware, an issue was recently brought to our attention that a number of our Active employees were experiencing an unexpected system error with Canada Life (formerly Great-West Life), resulting in their Health and Dental coverage to show as “Terminated” effective June 12, 2020.   As we worked through the cause of the error, it appears it was connected to a number of data transfer files sent shortly after the March 2020 cyber-attack, and unfortunately the impact of the error only came to light this past week. We apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused any of our employees and their families.

We can confirm the following:

  1. Canada Life has corrected employee benefit coverage records in their system to reinstating coverage for all employees affected by the error, while ensuring no break in benefit coverage.
  2. For employees who experienced troubles over the past few days at their Pharmacy, Dental office or other practitioners, and may have had an expense declined in error:
    1. For the employees who  paid for the expense, the receipts can now be re-submitted (via a paper claim submission or by using Canada Life on-line Group-Net App) for adjudication and reimbursement consideration.
    1. For employees whose practitioners held the receipt, they can now resubmit via any direct claims interfaces the practitioners may use in their offices, for adjudication and reimbursement consideration.

We understand the frustration caused by this issue and apologize for any inconvenience experienced by our employees.  The patience and understanding you and our employees have displayed while we worked with the insurer to resolve this issue is truly appreciated. 

We have included the same people who were notified in the original email sent last week, however please feel free to share the information in this email.  For employees who reached out to us, we have replied to them.  If you feel additional communication is appropriate,  we would appreciate suggestions as to methods of communication.

Should there be any outstanding questions or concerns regarding benefit coverage, please contact us at Benefits.pension@evrazna.com

Thank you,

Benefits Department, Canadian Operations