Changing jobs? Three benefits questions to answer before your last day.

New opportunity, layoff, retirement, a break to figure things out: whatever the reason, leaving a job comes with a checklist. The life insurance line on that checklist is the one almost everyone skips, because almost nobody knows the answer.

The short answer

In most cases, employer group life insurance ends when your employment does. Some plans offer conversion or portability options, usually with a deadline measured in days, usually at rates that surprise people. If you are counting on converting later, the fine print deserves a read now, not during your exit interview.

Before your last day, check three things

1. Whether your plan has a conversion or portability option, and its deadline.
2. What the converted coverage would cost, because group conversions are often priced above an individual policy for a healthy person.
3. Whether you already have coverage you own, because if you do, the job change barely matters.

That last item is the real answer. A policy you own is not attached to a badge. It moves when you move, survives layoffs, and does not care who signs your paycheck. Job changes stop being coverage emergencies and go back to being just job changes.

If a transition is on your horizon, this is a fifteen minute conversation, not a project. Bring your benefits summary and we will map it together, in plain language, before any deadline sneaks past.