Set Up Standard Rate Basic Life and AD&D Plans with Rate Calculator

This guide provides instructions for managing employee benefits through the setup of a rate calculator for basic life and AD&D plans. It highlights the automation of cost calculations, which enhances efficiency during employee self-enrollment and admin approval processes. The guide includes sections on benefit plan setup, employee view, and admin approval, detailing steps for entering plan details, coverage options, premium types, and eligibility costs. Administrators can select the Standard/Composite Rate for automated calculations, while employees can view their coverage options and associated costs. Additionally, it addresses how to update plan costs and the implications for employee enrollments. This resource aims to streamline the benefits management process effectively.

  • Jul 8, 2026
  • Knowledge

Title
Set Up Standard Rate Basic Life and AD&D Plans with Rate Calculator
Article Text
Benefits Administration is only included as an add-on.

Purpose: This help guide will teach you how to efficiently manage employee benefits by setting up the rate calculator for basic life and AD&D plans (standard/composite rate only). Learn how to automate cost calculations, saving time and ensuring accurate benefit elections.

Table of Contents

Administrators can use our rate calculator for standard rate basic life and AD&D plans to have costs automatically populated in the employee's self-enrollment experience and on the admin approval page. This feature will save you time as you will not need to manually enter costs when approving your employees' benefit elections.

Benefit plan setup

Plan details

Life insurance plans in BambooHR have additional plan type fields in Step 1 (Plan Details). Choose Basic as the plan type and determine a selection for the Life/AD&D field: Life, AD&D, or Both Life & AD&D. Once all fields are filled out, you can move forward to the Coverage Options step.

Coverage options

Add Life Insurance Plan
  1. Who else can be covered in addition to the employee?: If the plan covers dependents in addition to the employee, choose the applicable coverage options from the list.
  2. How are coverage amounts defined?: In this section, choose the coverage type (Fixed Amount, Salary-Based, or Other) and then input the coverage amounts employees and their dependents will receive.
    • Fixed Amount: This option will show currency fields, in which you can enter coverage amounts for the employee and dependents (if included).
    • Salary-Based: This option will show different settings based on the coverage options selected for the plan (see below).
      • Employee
        • # x employee's salary: The amount of life insurance coverage will be based on what the employee's annual salary will be as of the effective date of the enrollment. The system will assume a 40-hour work week when calculating salary for hourly employees.
        • Minimum & maximum amounts: A maximum amount is required. If the minimum amount does not have a value entered, it will default to $0. If an employee does not have pay information listed on their employee profile, their coverage amount will default to the minimum amount.
      • Spouse or Domestic Partner
        • The amount can be the percentage of the employee's coverage or fixed.
      • Per Child
        • The amount is fixed.
    • Other: Coverage amounts will default to $0 if you choose this coverage type. You will need to edit coverage amounts and enter costs on the admin approval page.

Premium type

In the Premium Type step, select Standard/Composite Rate to set up the rate calculator for automated cost calculations.

  • Existing plans will default to the Variable Rate option, but you can edit them if you need to change to the Standard/Composite Rate option.
  • If you need to define costs for each employee, select Variable Rate. Since the rate calculator does not apply to this option, you will need to manually enter costs on the admin approval page when reviewing employees' benefit elections.

Eligibility and cost

Once Standard/Composite Rate is selected, a new table will appear for each eligibility group you are setting up in the Eligibility and Cost step.

  1. What are the monthly premiums? For each applicable coverage option, enter an amount in the Total Cost column and then select if it is per month (default) or $1,000 of coverage. Total Cost fields allow up to 4 decimal places and require a value greater that $0.
    • How should child rates be added to the total cost?* This setting will only appear if you added the Children coverage option. The first option is selected by default but is editable.
  2. How much will they pay? The Company Pays field defaults to 100%, and you can determine a different amount if needed.

Employee view

BambooHR

When electing benefits, employees can view coverage amounts and how much they would pay for the plan per paycheck.

Admin approval

BambooHR

If an employee is enrolling in the plan, calculated costs will show in the Company Pays and Employee Pays columns on the admin approval page. Coverage amounts are listed in the Selected Coverage Level column.

Need to update plan costs (rates) for all eligible employees? You can edit costs within the plan setup. Updated costs will be reflected in employees' enrollment experience and pending benefit elections. Please note that approved benefit elections will not reflect the new costs. In this case, the plan will be like a variable rate plan with costs edited or entered manually.

Updates to an employee's approved enrollment within an enrollment window will be reflected in the CSV/Excel reports, PDF forms and carrier connections. However, if updating their approved enrollment via bulk enrollment, the importer, or the employee profile, you will need to communicate new enrollment details with your carriers. The exception to this is if you have carrier connections; in that case, any changes made will reliably send all the required data to your carriers.

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