Ask most HR professionals how they feel about open enrollment and you’ll likely get some version of this answer: it’s the period they spend all year preparing for and all year recovering from. 

Most HR practitioners agree, open enrollment (OE) is a lot. This feeling is a signal that OE carries real stakes — for employees making consequential decisions, for HR teams managing compliance and communication at the same time, and for brokers who need their clients to come out the other side with a defensible, well-run process.

This guide is written for the people running OE, covering some refreshers and basics like what open enrollment actually is, when it happens, what’s changed for 2026, what benefits employees typically elect, and how to structure the employer-side process from planning through post-enrollment wrap-up. 

Where relevant, it links out to the dedicated resources in Selerix’s OE content library for teams that want to go deeper on any one piece.

If you’re looking for more specific tools rather than a reference overview — a checklist, a communication calendar, a guide to OE software — our Selerix open enrollment guide hub is a good starting point.

Check out the Selerix open enrollment guide hub for an array of handy OE resources!

 Let’s get into the basics!

What Is Open Enrollment for Benefits?

Open enrollment is the annual window during which employees can enroll in, change, or waive their employer-sponsored benefits. Outside of this window, most elections are locked until the following year, which is what makes OE so high stakes. A decision made in a few minutes during a busy October can affect an employee’s health coverage, tax treatment, and financial position for the next twelve months.

For employers, open enrollment is both an administrative process and a communication challenge. The administrative side involves configuring benefit options in the enrollment system, managing eligibility, ensuring plan data is accurate, and coordinating with carriers. The communication side involves making sure employees understand what’s available, what’s changed, and what they need to do before the window closes.

Neither piece is optional, and neither runs well without the other. An enrollment system that’s technically correct but poorly communicated produces low participation and high regret. Well-designed communications driving employees to a platform that’s confusing or inaccurate creates a different set of problems. Open enrollment works when both sides are working.

When Does the Open Enrollment Period Happen? Key Dates Employers Should Know

Open enrollment timing varies by plan type and employer. The dates below are typical ranges. Exact windows depend on your own plan year, carrier, and state. If you’re managing multiple plans or employee populations, they may also follow slightly different schedules.

Employer-Sponsored Benefits Open Enrollment

Most employer-sponsored OE periods run October through December, for coverage effective January 1 of the following year. HR teams typically open the enrollment system and begin communications two to four weeks before the window starts, and close elections on a firm deadline — often in mid-November.

Employers on non-calendar plan years have more flexibility but face the same planning requirements: enough runway before the window opens to finalize plan details, configure the system, and get communications out to employees.

Special Enrollment Periods (SEPs)

Outside of open enrollment, employees can only change their benefits if they experience a qualifying life event — marriage, divorce, birth or adoption, loss of other coverage, or a change in dependent status. These events trigger a Special Enrollment Period, typically 30 to 60 days from the event date.

HR teams should have a clear process for handling SEPs year-round: documenting the qualifying event, confirming eligibility for the change, and processing the election within the SEP window. Missed SEPs (where an employee had a qualifying event but the change wasn’t processed in time) are one of the more common and preventable compliance issues in benefits administration.

Marketplace, Medicare, and Medicaid — What HR Needs to Know

Most employees enroll through employer plans, but HR teams occasionally field questions about other coverage options, particularly for employees who aren’t benefits-eligible, employees who are approaching Medicare age, or dependents with separate coverage needs.

•       ACA Marketplace: Open enrollment typically runs November 1 through January 15. Employees not eligible for employer coverage can enroll through Healthcare.gov. If your organization employs part-time or seasonal workers outside benefits eligibility, it helps to communicate this window so they don’t lose their chance to enroll.

•       Medicare: Medicare Open Enrollment runs October 15 through December 7 each year, covering Medicare Advantage and Part D plan changes. This becomes relevant for employers with older workforces or employees approaching 65.

•       Medicaid: Enrollment is generally year-round and income-based. Eligibility and processes vary significantly by state.

What’s New for 2026

Several limits and thresholds that affect plan design and employee elections have changed for plan years beginning in 2026. These are based on IRS guidance released in 2025; confirm the current figures with your broker or ERISA counsel before finalizing plan documents or communications.

Item	2025	2026
ACA affordability threshold	9.02%	9.96%
HSA — self-only contribution limit	$4,300	$4,400
HSA — family contribution limit	$8,550	$8,750
HDHP — minimum deductible (self-only)	$1,650	$1,700
HDHP — minimum deductible (family)	$3,300	$3,400
HDHP — out-of-pocket max (self-only)	$8,300	$8,500
HDHP — out-of-pocket max (family)	$16,600	$17,000
Health FSA salary reduction limit	$3,300	$3,400
Health FSA carryover maximum	$660	$680
Excepted Benefit HRA (EBHRA)	$2,150	$2,200
Dependent Care FSA	$5,000	$7,500*

*The Dependent Care FSA limit increase to $7,500 (from $5,000) was enacted under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025. This is not indexed for inflation and is the first change to this limit since 1986.

The ACA affordability threshold increase (from 9.02% to 9.96%) is the item most likely to require plan design review. It gives ALEs slightly more room before employee contributions trigger an affordability penalty, but it should be modeled against your actual plan contributions before assuming it changes anything. Consult with your broker on whether your current contribution structure still meets the safe harbor.

For a deeper look at ACA compliance obligations and reporting requirements, see our ACA reporting rules overview.

What Benefits Can Employees Choose During Open Enrollment?

Open enrollment covers a wide range of benefit categories. What’s available varies by employer and plan design, but the sections below describe what most mid-market employers offer and the decisions employees are making in each category.

Health Insurance Plans

Health coverage is the centerpiece of most OE periods and the decision employees spend the most time on — though research consistently shows they spend less time than they should. The plan types employers most commonly offer:

•       HMOs: Lower premiums; require referrals and in-network care.

•       PPOs: More flexibility on providers; typically higher out-of-pocket costs.

•       HDHPs: High-deductible plans with lower premiums; the only plan type eligible for HSA pairing.

The employer’s role here isn’t to make the decision for employees — it’s to give them enough information to make it themselves. That means side-by-side plan comparisons, clear cost-sharing data, and decision support tools that help employees think through their expected usage rather than defaulting to the cheapest option or the one they had last year.

Dental and Vision Coverage

Usually offered separately from medical, dental and vision plans cover preventive and corrective care that most medical plans exclude. Uptake tends to be high when communication clearly shows the value of preventive care — employees who don’t have current concerns often underestimate how quickly a dental or vision event can become costly without coverage.

Life and Disability Insurance

These voluntary benefits are frequently underenrolled relative to their value, partly because employees don’t think about them during good health and partly because the decisions are harder to make without guidance. Short- and long-term disability coverage, in particular, is underestimated by employees who don’t have significant savings to cover income gaps from an extended illness or injury.

HR communication on these benefits often works best when it uses concrete scenarios rather than coverage descriptions — what happens to a household income if an employee is out for six weeks vs. six months, for example.

Retirement Plans and Employer Matching

OE is a natural moment to prompt employees to review and potentially increase 401(k) contributions — particularly to capture the full employer match if they aren’t already doing so. The match is part of their total compensation; not capturing it is a real financial loss that employees sometimes don’t recognize until it’s framed that way.

FSAs and HSAs

These tax-advantaged accounts are among the most valuable tools in a benefits package and among the most frequently misunderstood. The key distinctions employees need to understand:

•       FSAs: Pre-tax contributions for predictable medical expenses; subject to the use-it-or-lose-it rule, with a limited carryover up to $680 in 2026.

•       HSAs: Available only with an HDHP; funds roll over indefinitely, can be invested, and are triple tax-advantaged. The 2026 contribution limit is $4,400 for self-only coverage and $8,750 for family coverage.

Employees who are enrolled in an HDHP but haven’t opened an HSA are leaving meaningful tax savings on the table. A brief explanation of how HSA balances grow over time often moves the needle more than quoting the contribution limits.

Additional Voluntary Benefits

Voluntary benefits — legal assistance, identity theft protection, pet insurance, hospital indemnity, critical illness — are increasingly part of mid-market benefit packages. They typically carry no cost to the employer but require employee communication to drive enrollment. Most employees don’t make active decisions about these benefits; they enroll or skip based on how clearly the value was explained at OE time.

How to Run Open Enrollment: Employer Checklist Across the Year

Open enrollment is a year-round process compressed into a few weeks. The checklist below breaks it into three phases. For expanded tools and templates at each stage, see the Selerix open enrollment guide hub.

Pre-Enrollment: 3–6 Months Before Your Open Enrollment Period

Pre-enrollment is often where OE is won or lost. The quality of the work done here determines how much firefighting is required during the window.

•       Review last year’s data: Participation rates, employee feedback, support ticket volume, and post-OE survey results. What questions came up repeatedly? What plan elections surprised you? Use this as the starting point for what to change.

•       Audit your benefit offerings: Review plan performance, carrier relationships, and cost trends. Work with your broker to model any plan changes against the ACA affordability threshold and your contribution strategy.

•       Confirm 2026 compliance requirements: Update plan limits, verify ACA affordability calculations, and confirm notice requirements (SBCs, COBRA notices, HIPAA notices) are scheduled. See the updated limits table in the section above.

•       Set enrollment goals: Define what success looks like before the window opens — participation targets, voluntary benefit uptake, error rate goals, support ticket volume. Without targets, it’s hard to evaluate what worked.

•       Prepare the enrollment system: Configure plan options, rates, and eligibility rules. Test employee-facing workflows for each plan type. Confirm integrations with payroll and carriers are functioning.

•       Build your communication calendar: Map out what goes to employees, when, through which channels, and from whom. Email, SMS, intranet, manager communications, and benefit fairs serve different purposes and different employee segments.

On goal-setting specifically, the open enrollment goals guide walks through how to translate participation targets into measurable KPIs.

During Open Enrollment: The 2–4 Week Enrollment Window

The window is open. The job shifts from planning to monitoring, communicating, and resolving issues in real time.

•       Launch with a clear kickoff: The first communication employees receive when OE opens sets the tone. Make it direct: here’s what’s available, here’s what’s changed, here’s what you need to do, and here’s the deadline.

•       Track completion daily: Monitor enrollment progress by department or location. Target reminder communications at employees who haven’t started, not everyone — blanket reminders train employees to ignore them.

•       Keep support accessible: A staffed help resource — whether a dedicated email, a live drop-in session, or a vendor-supported chat — reduces errors and increases confidence. Employees who can’t get answers often make decisions by default.

•       Address issues immediately: System errors, eligibility questions, and employee confusion compound quickly during a short window. Build an escalation path before OE opens so nothing waits.

•       Close with urgency: The last few days of OE drive a disproportionate share of completions. A deadline reminder with a clear “this is your last chance” framing — not buried in a paragraph — consistently moves the needle.

The OE kickoff prep checklist covers the day-one launch sequence in detail. The HR guide to driving OE participation covers engagement tactics during the window.

Post-Enrollment: After the Window Closes

OE doesn’t end when the window closes. Several tasks remain that are easy to deprioritize and costly to miss.

•       Audit enrollment data: Verify that elections were processed correctly, carrier feeds transmitted without errors, and payroll deductions reflect updated elections.

•       Collect employee feedback: A short post-OE survey — sent within two weeks while the experience is fresh — is the most reliable way to identify what to improve next cycle. Response rates drop sharply after that window.

•       Document and reset: Archive election records, note what changed from last year, and flag anything that needs to be addressed before next OE. The best time to document lessons is now, not in nine months.

•       Begin year-round communication: Employees who are reminded about their benefits throughout the year — not just during OE — report higher satisfaction and use their benefits more effectively. Benefits literacy is a year-round project.

Be careful not to view OE as the finish line; it’s really the starting line for living with the choices employees just made. Year-round communication, accessible support, and plain-language coverage explanations are what close that gap. In fact, the Selerix Employee Benefits Survey found a 48-point satisfaction gap between employees who knew where to go and what to do after enrolling and those who felt confused — 62% vs. 14% very high satisfaction. 

For the post-enrollment side specifically, the post-OE benefits reset guide covers the broker perspective on what to do after the window closes.

How to Help Employees Prepare for Open Enrollment

It’s important to remember that the employer experience of OE and the employee experience of OE are really two different things. Employees are making decisions with incomplete information, under time pressure, about products they interact with rarely. Most of the confusion HR fields during OE — and the regret that surfaces after — traces back to that gap.

A few approaches that consistently help:

•       Give them a starting point: Before the window opens, prompt employees to review what they elected last year and whether anything in their life has changed — new dependent, new health condition, approaching retirement. A pre-enrollment checklist or email does this without requiring HR to have individual conversations.

•       Make comparison easy: Side-by-side plan comparisons and total cost estimators (not just premium comparisons) help employees evaluate what a plan actually costs in a typical year. Most employees underweight out-of-pocket costs when they choose the lowest-premium option.

•       Explain what’s different this year: Employees who re-enroll in the same plan year after year often don’t realize something has changed. A clear “what’s new for this plan year” communication reduces surprises and support tickets.

•       Provide decision support tools: Guided enrollment tools, benefits counselors, and recorded Q&A sessions serve employees who need more than a document. In fact, the Selerix Employee Benefits Survey found that employees who feel supported during enrollment are significantly more likely to be satisfied with their choices afterward.

For a broader look at reducing post-enrollment regret, see what to do when employees regret their OE choices.

Can Employees Change Their Benefits After Open Enrollment?

Generally, no. Once the enrollment window closes, elections are locked until the next OE period, which is exactly why the stakes of the window feel high to employees who understand it, and why employees who don’t understand it sometimes make careless decisions.

The exception is a qualifying life event. Marriage, divorce, birth or adoption, loss of other health coverage, or a change in dependent status triggers a Special Enrollment Period — typically 30 days from the event — during which the affected employee can make changes consistent with the life event.

HR’s job when an employee reports a qualifying event is to document it, confirm eligibility for the change, and process the election within the SEP window. Delays past the window typically require the employee to wait until the next OE, which can create real hardship when the event is a new dependent or a loss of coverage.

For a broader look at why OE matters beyond the window itself, see why open enrollment isn’t really over yet.

What to Do If an Employee Misses the Open Enrollment Deadline

Missed deadlines happen, even with strong communications. The right response depends on your plan documents and employer policy — not every missed deadline has the same fix.

•       Check your plan documents: Some employers allow a short grace period for late submissions. If yours does, document the policy and apply it consistently.

•       Determine whether a SEP applies: If the employee missed OE because of a qualifying life event they weren’t aware triggered an SEP, there may be a path to a mid-year change. Document carefully.

•       Communicate the consequences clearly: An employee who missed OE and doesn’t have a qualifying event will generally be without the benefits they intended to elect until the next enrollment window. HR’s job is to explain this accurately, not soften it in ways that create false expectations.

•       Use it to improve next cycle: Every missed deadline is a data point. Was it a communication gap? A system access issue? An employee who didn’t understand what was at stake? The answer should inform how you run OE next year.

Final Thoughts: Make Open Enrollment Easier for HR and Employees

Open enrollment is one of those processes where the employer’s effort and the employee’s experience are closely linked, but not in the way most HR teams assume. 

More communications don’t automatically produce better outcomes. More benefit options don’t automatically produce better decisions. What moves the needle is clarity: clear plan information, clear timelines, clear support channels, and clear follow-through after the window closes.

The administrative and communication demands of OE have grown significantly as benefit packages have expanded and workforce expectations have shifted. Most HR teams running OE today are doing so with the same size team they had when OE was simpler. That’s where technology closes the gap, by handling the logistics reliably enough that the human side can do its job.

Selerix brings together benefits administration, employee communication, decision support, and ACA compliance in a platform built for the full OE lifecycle — from pre-enrollment planning through year-round employee engagement. 

To see how it works for your organization, connect with a Selerix expert. Or start with the tools: the open enrollment guide hub has checklists, templates, and resources for every phase.