A number of retirees have received notices from the University of California (UC) about an “Accellion Data Breach”. This seems to most directly affect retirees who receive their pensions from UC. More information is on the UCnet website (ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/ and click on a topic related to “Update”)

What does this notice mean?

If your pension is from UC, your personal information, as well as that of your spouse and survivors, has likely been part of this data breach. The information that was breached may include: name, address, phone number, birth date, Social Security number, and bank account information. This information is exactly what is needed to carry out Identity Theft. UC believes that the everyone in the UC community (Staff, Students, Retirees, and affiliates) may be affected, and it may be difficult, or impossible, to identify each person who has had their information breached. In addition to UC, about 100 other organizations have been affected by a similar vulnerability.

As far as we know now, the personal information of non-UC retirees (CalPERS, and LANS/Triad) is not part of this data breach. Nevertheless, research is continuing and more people may be found to be affected.     Continue reading →

LRG seeks new editor for “The Main Gate” newsletter.

The March issue of LRG’s “The Main Gate” will be the last for our current editor, Joyce Wolff. We are urgently looking for someone to carry on with editing of the newsletter. Ideally, a prospective editor would be alert to subjects of interest to retirees, and be interested in pursuing these topics with interviews, photos, etc. Also ideally, they would enjoy writing, and have reasonable familiarity with word processing software on a pc or Mac.

How the Main Gate is prepared

The Main Gate is published three times a year, in March, July and November.

A typical issue has ten pages, though some recent issues have had 12 pages, with articles on particularly interesting topics.

Continue reading →

Retirees who have AD&D insurance through LANL: The separately billed Hartford AD&D (accidental death) insurance has been changed to MetLife.  Coverage remains the same.  The insurance is and has been billed separately and not through Empyrean.  Not everyone has this insurance.  There was no notice to retirees of this change.  By now, all subscribers should have received a billing notice from MetLife.  We have heard that the deadline for the first payment is January 13.  Please arrange with your bank for electronic transfer from your bank, or send a check.  Include your account number.  For further information, contact MetLife Subscriber Services at 1-866-492-6983.  Address is Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.,  P. O. Box 13724, Philadelphia, PA 19101-3724. 

We have been informed by Laboratory benefits group that the open enrollment for Lab retirees will be a passive open enrollment this year. They stated specifically “This year’s open enrollment for our retirees will be a passive enrollment, if you have no changes, then you do not need to do anything for next year’s benefit enrollment. We will not be holding any virtual presentations for retirees this year. Open Enrollment for our retirees will run from October 26 – November 12, 2020. Letters will be mailed out to our retirees to remind them of the upcoming open enrollment event.” Therefore, if you plan to make any changes in your insurance coverage, you will need to login to the Empyrean website to make the appropriate changes. Follow the instructions that you will receive in the mail soon from Lab Benefits for the open enrollment for your insurance coverage in 2021. If you had any “life events” like death in the family, marriage or remarriage, new dependents, new eligibility for Medicare or others, you will need to contact Empyrean.

We hope all our readers are staying healthy and safe. Please be sure to get any important immunizations you may require, like the influenza shot, pneumonia and shingles shots and any required booster shots like tetanus. Consider the covid-19 vaccine when it is developed and proven effective and safe. Medicare and Lab retiree health insurance will cover most immunizations. Stay safe this Fall and Winter!