DATE: Friday, November 6, 2026
Please share this information with your Servicing Personnel Office and all appropriate staff.
This year’s Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Open Season runs from November 9 through December 14, 2026. The Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Open Season guidance for Agency Benefit Officers can be found here:
https://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/open-season/agency-benefits-officers/
In the FEHB Significant Events Table, OPM outlines the terminating plans and plans that are reducing areas of coverage for plan year 2027. Employees currently enrolled in a terminating health plan, or affected by a plan reducing its coverage area, should make a new valid health benefits election through Employee Express or their Servicing Personnel Office (SPO) during Open Season.
Agency Action Required: Terminating Plans
On November 9, 2026, IBC’s Benefits Processing Branch will provide agency SPOs with a query identifying impacted employees in the terminating plans. Please notify these employees that their current health plan is being terminated and encourage them to make a new election in Employee Express. If a SPO does not receive a query, it means that no employees have been identified in the affected plans for that SPO.
If these employees do not make an election during Open Season, the SPO will need to transfer these employees into the lowest cost provider per the OPM guidance and our Client Interface Guide. The lowest cost provider for 2027 is the Compass Rose Health Plan Standard. To complete this transfer, the SPO needs to enter the most current SF 2809 Health Benefits Election Form information into FPPS under the FEHB command. This is the only way to properly build the information in FPPS so that it can be transmitted to OPM and to the health benefit carrier.
Resources
Questions
- If you have any questions, please contact Duke Dupre with the Benefits Processing Branch.