You are eligible for Zoetis health, insurance, and personal benefit plans if you are a U.S. or Puerto Rico colleague working full- or part-time (regularly scheduled to work at least 40% of a standard work week). Colleagues represented by a union will be eligible based on the terms of their collective bargaining agreement. Interns are not eligible for benefits.
Certain dependents are eligible and can be covered under the Zoetis health, applicable insurance, and discounted personal benefits. Eligible dependents include:
- Your same- or opposite-sex spouse or domestic partner
- A child who is:
- Yours, your spouse’s, or your domestic partner’s child, up to age 26 and not in active service in the armed forces; or
- Under age 26 and required to be covered under a Qualified Medical Child Support Order; or
- Not self-supporting due to a mental or physical disability, regardless of age.
Zoetis Couples and Eligibility
If you and another Zoetis colleague are married or in a domestic partnership, you can choose to enroll in your own coverage or as a dependent under your spouse’s or partner’s Zoetis coverage. You cannot be covered as a colleague and a dependent at the same time under any Zoetis-sponsored coverage. Additionally, your children can only be enrolled under one colleague’s coverage.
Special Note on Domestic Partners
When enrolling a domestic partner for health benefits, you will be asked to certify that you are in a domestic partner relationship. Enrollment of your domestic partner and your domestic partner’s children, if applicable, will result in your paying Social Security and income taxes on the value (imputed income) of their benefits. In addition, a portion of your payroll contribution attributable to their coverage will be taken on a post-tax basis.
If your domestic partner is a tax-dependent domestic partner as defined under Sections 105(b) and 152 of the Internal Revenue Code, such individual will be coded as a spouse for purpose of benefits taxation treatment. You will not be subject to imputed income and your payroll contribution will be pre-tax, including the amount attributable to their coverage.
When enrolling your domestic partner, you will be asked to certify that your partner, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, falls into one of the following categories: (1) a registered domestic partnership with you; (2) a civil union with you or (3) a domestic partnership with you that is not legally registered but meets the following requirements:
- The person is at least 18 years of age;
- The person is not related to you by blood to a degree of closeness that would prohibit legal marriage;
- The person exclusively lives with you and has done so for the prior 12 months with the intent to do so indefinitely;
- The person is not married to someone else or engaged in another domestic partnership; and
- The person is financially interdependent with you and can prove interdependence by providing documentation of one of the following:
- Common ownership or leasehold of real property
- Common ownership or leasehold of motor vehicle
- Joint bank or credit accounts
- Designation as primary beneficiary or
- Assignment of durable property or health care power of attorney
Is Your Child Turning Age 26?
If your child is enrolled in a Zoetis health plan and turns 26, their coverage will automatically end on that date and they will be offered continuation of benefits under COBRA. Coverage will also end if your child is covered under child life or child accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) benefits. Prudential Life Insurance will provide information to you on converting and/or porting your child’s life insurance and/or AD&D benefits.
Eligible new hires should consider enrollment in health, disability, life, discounted personal and retirement savings benefits.
- You have 30 days from your hire date to enroll in all health and insurance benefits.
- You can enroll in the Zoetis Savings Plan and most of the discounted personal benefit offerings at any time of year, but you are encouraged to take advantage of these offerings as soon as possible.
- When you are enrolling in the Zoetis Savings Plan and Life Insurance benefit, don’t forget to make your beneficiary elections. You have separate beneficiary elections for the Zoetis Savings Plan and the Life Insurance benefit.
- Generally, you can expect to receive emails with enrollment information during your first week of employment to let you know you are set up and able to enroll.
Enrolling
- Health and Insurance: Visit Your Benefits Matter if you are on the Zoetis network or go to digital.alight.com/zoetis. For assistance, call the Zoetis Benefits Center at 1-833-885-5658, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET.
- Zoetis Savings Plan: Visit Merrill at benefits.ml.com or call 1-800-228-4015. If you do not make a Savings Plan colleague contribution election within 30 days of your hire date you will be defaulted to an automatic 5% contribution rate.
- Zoetis Benefits Plus (Discounted Personal Benefits): visit zoetis.corestream.com or call 1-888-935-9595.
You can choose to waive Zoetis medical, dental, and/or vision coverage as well as participation in the flexible spending accounts. However, if you do waive any of these benefits, you will not have another opportunity to enroll until the next Annual Enrollment period unless you experience a Qualified Life Event (QLE) that allows for certain enrollment changes during the year.
If your employment with Zoetis ends, active benefits will end on your termination date. Depending on the benefit, options may be available for benefit continuation through COBRA or through conversion or portability provisions.
You can find details in each plan’s Summary Plan Description posted on Your Benefits Matter if you are on the Zoetis network, or go to digital.alight.com/zoetis and register with a user ID and password of your choice.
When changes in your life occur, your healthcare benefits need to be responsive to those changes. IRS rules regarding healthcare elections typically limit you to an annual election, but if you have a change in status — also called a Qualified Life Event (QLE) — you will be able to make certain changes consistent with the QLE.
Certain QLEs will require you to take action within 31 calendar days after the date of the event, including marriage, birth, adoption, divorce, and legal separation.
If you do not make your healthcare benefit changes within these time periods, you will need to wait until the next Annual Enrollment period. These time periods are based on IRS rules governing pre-tax health plans and must be followed.
The following are considered QLEs:
- Your marriage, divorce, legal separation or annulment
- Registering a Domestic Partner
- The birth, legal adoption, placement for adoption or legal guardianship of a child
- A change in your Spouse’s or Domestic Partner’s employment or involuntary loss of health coverage (other than coverage under the Medicare or Medicaid programs) under another employer’s plan
- Loss of coverage due to the exhaustion of another employer’s COBRA benefits, provided you were paying for premiums on a timely basis
- Your death or the death of a Dependent
- Your Dependent child no longer qualifying as an eligible Dependent
- A change in your or your Spouse’s or Domestic Partner’s position or work schedule that impacts eligibility for health coverage
- Contributions were no longer paid by the employer (this is true even if you or your eligible Dependent continues to receive coverage under the prior plan and to pay the amounts previously paid by the employer)
- You or your eligible Dependent who was enrolled in an HMO no longer live or work in that HMO’s service area and no other benefit option is available to you or your eligible Dependent
- Benefits are no longer offered by the Plan to a class of individuals that include you or your eligible Dependent
- Termination of your or your Dependent’s Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage as a result of loss of eligibility (you must contact the Zoetis Benefits Center within 60 days of termination)
- You or your Dependent become eligible for a premium assistance subsidy under Medicaid or CHIP (you must contact the Zoetis Benefits Center within 60 days of the date of determination of subsidy eligibility)
- You or your Dependent lose eligibility for coverage in the individual market, including coverage purchased through a public exchange or other public market established under the Affordable Care Act (Marketplace) (other than loss of eligibility for coverage due to failure to pay premiums on a timely basis or termination of coverage for cause, such as making a fraudulent claim or an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact) regardless of whether you or your Dependent may enroll in other individual market coverage, through or outside of a Marketplace
- A court or administrative order