Well thats just overwhelmingly ****ty! Every contract has specific times when you become available for insurance. Get a copy of your union contract and it will say exactly when in there.

In my contract the requirements are working a minimum of 80 hours per month (ie, PT 20 status) , and Level 1 is available after 6 months after your probation period ends, so 8 months. As long as you work over 80 hours, and pay the $5 weekly premium, you're decently insured. After another year you can get dental coverage, and another year after that vision coverage. Unfortunately both of those are way worse than the health coverage. For instance the vision pays for eye exams (good), but only $100 for lenses and frames! The Dental barely pays 30% of a decent dentists bills. There are some dentists who say they accept the fees in our schedule but i dont think I'll trust my teeth to someone charging 1/3 of what a good dentist does! They also have a dental plan through a Kaiser-like dental plan called Willamette Dental, and while the rates are cheap (just small co-pays), there are horror stories about their work.

So all in all, check the contract, it should have specific requirements, and you need to contact the "Trust Office" for the health plan to get documents.

I have worked for Kroger for 4 1/2 yrs. I did not have a problem getting insurance here. However, the dental SUCKS! (They only cover the front 6 teeth??? I quess we can all become beavers.)

 Have you tried getting your union rep involved. They can step in on your behalf since the insurance generally goes through the Fund Office anyway. You might also be able to go to their site and download the correct paper work. GOOD LUCK!

Below are Americas top 5 health insurance companies:

United Healthcare Group
At the top of Americas top 10 health insurance companies is United, a company with a client base of over 75 million people has its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It provides a range of in and out of network plans, individual plans, group plans and a variety of Medicare options.

WellPoint Inc.
Another of Americas top 10 health insurance companies, WellPoint is part of the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia and Empire Blue Cross. It provides a range of individual plans, group plans, HMOs, PPOs, hybrid plans and COBRA. It also offers Medicare plans under Anthem Blue Cross.

Kaiser Permanente Foundation
The Kaiser Foundation operates primarily as a healthcare management system and has its headquarters in Oakland, California. It also provides Medicare plans and is being considered as a portal for a Medicaid conversion plan by the federal government.

Aetna
The Aetna Group is located in Hartford, Connecticut. It provides standard HMO plans, PPO in-network and out-of-network, Medicare and other government and Federal plans in a number of cities.

Humana Group
Humana has its headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. It provides High Deductible health plans, HMOs, Standard PPOs, Personal Care PPOs, Point of Purchase plans, Coverage First, Medicare, and Humana Classic.

Kroger has Blue Cross Health Insurance. You must be employed for 18 months before they can issue you the insurance. After you've been with the company for a few years, you can get insurance for you and your family. It's not actually too bad, Blue Cross is one of the best. I live in Illinois, but other states could have different insurance companies.

ooooohhhhhhh

FrontEndSlave wrote:

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Personally I would not trust my personal health to this company since they seem to want to wear it down or push it to its limits as much as possible.
Gathering carts manually.
Bagging for hours straight.
Demanding one person do the work of two or three people.

I wouldn't trust this company to issue a Band-Aid(tm) to me if I cut my finger.
I sure as hell wouldn't trust them to pay out a co-pay or partial pay to a dentist or physician.
Your fatality possibilities would be higher or you would at least say bye-bye to your teeth.

This company is soulless and emotionless. They are The Cybermen of the retail industry.
If I feel like I am going to need something involving insurance, I am going to look elsewhere for possibilities before becoming desperate enough to turn to (sigh) Kroger.

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Have fun paying premiums that are as high as your rent. 

I will be starting work at Kroger's next month. So you a saying I have to wait 8 months to enroll in medical insurance. Man, that's a long time to wait. Guess I should find some coverage until the 8 months, right?