Severance paychecks

Can anyone who has received severance at WF or is personally familiar with the severance paychecks please enlighten me? I want to have an idea of how this works before I get cut, if that ends up happening.

During the notice period paychecks, do all the same deductions continue to be taken from your paycheck? 401k, health insurance, HSA/FSA, any other benefits you pay for? I would think yes because you’re still considered an employee during the notice period, even though you aren’t working and you’re zz status.

After the notice period is over and you’re receiving severance paychecks every two weeks, are those same deductions still taken out? Or are you no longer contributing to the 401k and your HSA/FSA, paying the employee portion of insurance premiums, and so on?

Also related – how does insurance plan coverage during the severance period work? Example, you are laid off in August and qualify for enough severance that you’re getting insurance coverage under severance in 2024. Do they extend the same plan coverage in 2024 as you had in 2023? They’re really clear during standard November enrollment period that you have to explicitly choose benefit coverage since the same plan coverage doesn’t auto-renew. Except if you’re laid off, you have no ability to choose 2024, so are they giving you the same coverage in 2024 severance as you elected in 2023? With adjustments to the closest comparable plan in 2024, if the one you had in 2023 isn’t offered anymore?

TIA. If anyone has other helpful info to share or related questions, please share.

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There is no 401k match unless you are an employee at match time.

Does anyone know if the company still matches 401k at the end of the year if on severance?

@1kvp+1nSSKeCB

I've been in the severance pay for a little while now and my HSA deductions are exactly the same as how I set them up at the start of the year. I had already fully funded my 401k for the year by setting it to 50% to max it out before the severance but for HSA, that seems to still work the same.

What I did notice is that it looks like the Rally dollars aren't going in my HSA even though Rally says it is being accrued. HR made statements on the Zoom (which of course they wouldn't put in writing or let us record) that we would still earn our Rally dollars afterwards so I didn't feel pressured to get as many activities complete during the notice period as possible.

So the takeaway: if you just got notified of layoff and have the HDHP HSA plan, get your Rally dollars during the notice period. Don't wait into the severance period.

As for the health insurance itself, it's still just the employee rate and that stays the same until the end of the severance period or if you take the lump sum instead of staying on the standard biweekly schedule. So pro tip is do NOT take the lump sum unless you want to pay 6x as much for health insurance.

You can optionally go on COBRA (paying the full rate, generally 6x the normal employee cost) after the end of your last severance check, but for most people you will either already have started your new job by then and be on that company's insurance or be able to get cheaper coverage through the ACA marketplace.

It's an adventure - good luck. Try to decompress a little in the meantime but do make sure anything you can get done, you do get done before the end of the notice period.

Btw I have read the benefits book and what it says about severance. I don't think it has this level of information. Feel free to point out where it does if it's addressed. I wish it did say it clearly so there was transparency and accountability, in the event that what is stated isn't what is processed.

Thanks @1kvp+1nSSKeCB. I appreciate hearing about your experience.

go to teamworks and type "severance" into the search box. Click on the article link , scroll down and click on "benefits book" link. That has everything in gory detail. Lots of mistaken info gets spread on this board - the benefits book is the legal document.

during notice things are all the same. After notice no 401K, HSA deductions. Insurance deductions is kept the same. Insurance choices is kept the same between years (2022-2023) in my case. This is if you didn't take the "lump sum".

HR doesn't even know these answers.

See, this is why we need HR.

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Severance paychecks

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