COBRA - Covered Employers

If you offer a group health plan and employ 20 or more people, you must extend federal COBRA rights to continue benefits under the plan to all qualified beneficiaries.

If you employ two to 19 people, federal COBRA provisions do not apply. However, you may be covered by Cal-COBRA. For more information, see Cal-COBRA.

The determination of COBRA coverage is made based on the number of employees employed in the previous calendar year. Any new employer, no matter how large, is not technically covered by COBRA in its first year of existence unless it had a predecessor or it is part of a controlled group of organizations covered by COBRA.