If you receive no response to this in-person or phone inquiry, I would ask the same question of his/her boss. If the boss suggests that you speak to the benefits person who is supposed to be responsible for this item, tell the boss “oh, I did write to and speak to Jane Smith on such and such dates, however I never heard back from her and my eligiblity window is limited, so I thought you might be able to help me out instead.” The boss will likely move quickly on ensuring your request is handled once they hear this.

In the benefits person’s defense (at the sake of being egged), perhaps there are also other things going on that you may not be aware of..over-worked, under-staffed, unappreciated, burned out, on vacation, ill, doesn’t have the proper tools to manage the workload, etc. etc. and the list goes on and on. But until someone complains, none of that can be or will be rectified. In my experience, it’s only when the level of service drops, that the company will look at providing additional resources.

That being said, it’s possibly also true that the benefits person simply is not capable of performing the duties of her/his job, and if that’s the case, the manager needs to know this as well.

I told her, honey if you can’t handle being interrupted you need to get out of HR. You are giving the rest of us a bad reputation.

Of course there are some extreme cases. If you have one benefits person and 5,000 employees then you have a management problem, not necessarily an incompetent benefits person problem.

Not to beat a dead horse, but depending upon the circumstances of the missed COBRA opportunity the company could be in violation of the act by not providing notices and election forms in a certain amount of time.

Evil is giving good advice on ccing and finding the problem solver of the organization. If it were me I would march down to wherever the benefits person is and give her a couple of pieces of my mind. Of course that may not be possible if she is at another location.