Quick answer
Open Benefits in the sidebar. Each plan shows its provider, what it covers and the dates cover runs between. Click Join to enrol — adding how many dependants you cover — or Decline to record that you were offered it and did not take it. When cover no longer applies, click End cover.
What a "standing" is
A standing is your position on one plan. It is one of three things:
- Enrolled — you are covered, from a date, possibly along with dependants.
- Declined — you were offered the plan and did not take it.
- Ended — that standing is over. Ended standings are history and never change again.
You can have at most one open standing on a plan at a time. That is why joining a plan you have already declined takes two steps: withdraw the declination first, then join. It reads as one extra click, and it is what keeps every record on the page unambiguous.
Why an enrolment never turns into a declination
If you are covered from January and stop in March, that is three months of cover followed by a declination — not "a declination". Quietly turning one row into the other would erase months you genuinely were covered, and an insurer or a hospital asking "were they covered in February?" has to get a truthful yes.
So changing your mind always ends one standing and records a new one. Both stay on your page, and the earlier ones sit under "Earlier" on the plan.
The cover window
Every plan has a first day of cover, and sometimes a last one. You cannot start or end a standing outside those dates — not because of a screen rule, but because the database refuses it. That is what makes "was this person covered on the 3rd?" a question with one answer rather than an argument.
If a plan is in the list but you cannot join it, the card says why: it has not started yet, its window has closed, or it has been retired.
What Benefits does not do
Being plain about this matters more than the feature list:
- It does not calculate a premium, and holds no amount of money anywhere.
- It does not deduct anything from your salary, and never appears on a payslip.
- It does not handle claims, and does not talk to your insurer's systems.
It records who is covered, and from when. If your organisation needs any of the rest, ask us — those are configured on request.
Frequently asked questions
- Does joining a benefit plan change my salary or my payslip?
- No. Benefits records who is covered and from when. It does not calculate a premium, take anything off your salary, or appear on your payslip. If your organisation recovers a contribution from pay, that is done separately in payroll and nothing here affects it.
- Can my manager see which plans I am on?
- No. Benefits is the one module where a manager gets no view at all — not your enrolment, not your dependant count, not even that you looked. Only you and an HR admin can read your benefit records. That is enforced in the database, not by hiding it on screen.
- I declined a plan and have changed my mind. What do I do?
- Click "Change my mind" on that plan to withdraw the declination, then join it from the same list. You can only have one standing on a plan at a time, which is why it takes two steps rather than one.
- I want to leave the plan and record a declination instead. Can I do that in one click?
- No, and deliberately. Ending your cover and declining the plan are two different facts. Flipping your enrolment into a declination would erase the months you actually were covered, and somebody may need to prove those later.
- Why can I not join a plan that is showing in the list?
- Either the plan has not started covering anyone yet, its cover window has closed, or it has been retired and is not taking anyone new. The plan card says which, in a sentence, instead of showing you a button that would fail.
- What happens to my cover if HR retires the plan?
- Nothing. Retiring a plan stops it taking anyone new; it does not end the cover of anyone already on it. Your standing stays exactly as it is until it is ended.
- Do you store my dependants' names or medical details?
- No. Benefits holds a count and nothing else — no names, no dates of birth, no medical information about anyone you cover. If your insurer needs those, they are collected by the insurer, not here.
This guide also lives in the help centre at /help/benefits/how-to-enrol-in-a-benefit-plan, which is its canonical home.