Are there any benefits of FMLA beyond preserving your job?
How will your employer treat your pay and benefits status while you're on leave?   Disability income coverage and leave policies work in tandem to solve very different problems.  Disability income coverage covers your income, leave policies guarantee your status as an employee.   Typically, STD coverage requires an actual loss of income and will offset it's stated benefit for any income you're receiving.  In general you can't begin a STD claim after the 7 day waiting period and also draw income from vacation or sick time.  Also, typically STD will cover some percentage of your covered pay (sometimes including commission/bonus income) up to some weekly maximum. FLMA requires employers to allow certain amounts of time for certain types of leave.  FMLA is not necessarily an income replacement tool like STD coverage.   Contrary to your post it's my understanding that if sick and vacation time accrue in to a single PTO bucket your employer is prohibited from requiring employees to exhaust accrued time prior to beginning FMLA leave. In general, you're not missing anything because the point of FMLA is to guarantee your job and status as an employee from a benefits perspective. Benefits language from the Department of Labor Website A covered employer is required to maintain group health insurance coverage, including family coverage, for an employee on FMLA leave on the same terms as if the employee continued to work. In your situation, it sounds like the only added benefit would be insurance continuance.  For employees who can't access short-term disability it is a critical protection against losing their job. I just want to emphasize that given that you are in a pretty decent employment situation.
I'd imagine you want to keep the utility bills around to dispute any historical billing errors or anomalies for perhaps 6 months to a year. Beyond that, you always have the financial records of making the payments -- namely, your bank statements. So what benefit is there in keeping the paper receipts for utility payments around for longer than that? I say shred them, with extreme prejudice -- while wearing black Chuck Norris style. COBRA is with regards to any termination, not only if you're laid off. If you leave your job voluntarily you're still eligible for COBRA, at least from my experience in California. Once you start working at the new job that provides health benefits - you're expected to roll-off of COBRA. No. Once you run out of the COBRA period - you're on your own. "First of all, one thing that is very important: Match is always better than no match.  So, you should definitely use that match on your HSA if you've already maxed out the company match on your 401(k).  In fact, for most people there won't be much reason to invest in your 401(k) above the company match at all. If, for example, your company matches only up to 5%, and you want to invest 15% of income into retirement, you ought to open an IRA instead (Roth or standard depending on your situation) and put the extra 10% in there. Beyond that, you're right, HSA's (the accounts themselves) have all the benefits of a 401(k).  I wouldn't invest there for retirement instead an IRA, though.  There is just no reason. The only built-in downside of an HSA is the HDHP attachment, which may be undesirable to some employees or in certain situations. If you want to get down to raw dollar figures and your company is offering both a standard health plan and a HDHP+HSA, the calculation will be dependent on the premiums and benefits of each and your projected costs of your health care (which is always a crystal ball estimation anyway).  Those costs and benefits can vary wildly, from a completely obvious choice on either the HDHP or standard plan, or pretty much a wash where you decide based on your comfort level with a high deductible. To illustrate... Standard plan: Your company might offer a standard plan that costs you $100 out of pocket for an individual.  That means you pay a minimum of $1200 a year for health care.  Most plans will have copays (a flat amount like $15 you pay for standard doctor consultations), a deductible (you pay 100% of fees up to this, co-pays don't count), a percentage you pay beyond the deductible (20% is typical), and a maximum (like $1000 per individual per year - beyond this, up to a ""lifetime"" maximum benefit of like $2 million, you won't be charged anything). In a standard plan where you have no expenses, you might pay $1200 a year plus a couple co-pays, for a total of $1230.  In a bad year with surgery, you might max out, so $1200 + $30 + $1000 = $2230. HDHP/HSA: These plans are very different.  You might still pay a premium, I.E. $30 a month.  They will still have a deductible and maximum, but they might be the same amount.  You will probably not have copays (I didn't when I had one, but I could be wrong), which means a standard doctor visit will cost more like $80-100. In a good year, this will mean that you pocket $500 from your company, but pay back $360 in premiums.  A couple doctor visits would mean there's only $300 left in your account at the end of the year.  But, that's still a net cost of only $60, compared to $1230.  Big win! In a bad year, you would end up out of pocket the max (say $2000) plus premiums, minus the $500, for a total of $1860.  In this case, still better than the standard plan. The important difference will come in an in-between year.  You will reach the max quicker on an HDHP than you will on a standard plan.  With a family, where all of these numbers are higher, and you have more people to be getting sick/injured this might make the standard plan a better benefit. However, since whatever you build up in an HSA account stays with you forever, while you're single and have only your own health to be concerned about, that is probably a good choice.  When you have a family, things might change and you switch to a standard plan, but you still have that war-chest to offset copays and hospital visits in future years. I was forced onto an HSA for 2 years with a smaller company.  They had a really good contribution, $2500 if I remember right, and we saved up big time. Later, when my wife was pregnant, we were on a low-deductible standard plan and paid all our fees out of the HSA.  It worked out great. I say, as long as the averaged yearly expected costs make sense after doing calculations illustrated above, go for it!" &gt;Sounds like he should sell or close the company.  You bring up a very good point. If he cares so much about his employees, but it's just too inconvenient for him to run the company if his taxes go up 5%, why not sell it instead of putting 7000 people out of a job? Why threaten people when there's an obvious alternative? Hell, if he just wants to close it anyways, he could just give the company away.  &gt;See I can already shoot down your explanation, because it's not just higher taxes, its increased business tax liability, increased business insurance liability.  Nope. He explicitly states that he will downsize or close the company if there are *any new taxes* whatsoever on either him *or* the business. It's also worth noting that his company is currently more profitable than its ever been.  &gt;Obama said he didnt build it  What?  &gt;Rhetoric is cute until thousands of employees are out of jobs because the owner didn't feel it was worth it to continue the business.  Yeah so maybe he should cut his bullshit rhetoric when those jobs are on the line and the only one responsible for their fates is him. And if it's really too much of a bother for him to run the company if he's making slightly less money when he's already said he has more money than he'll ever need, he can promote someone else to run the company or just sell it. Saying he cares about his employees makes him a liar, criticizing people who spent beyond their means makes him a hypocrite, and his empty threats and brow beating make him a bully. Right, but the point is that some professions, such as attorneys, can be paid hourly yet still not be eligible for overtime. I was responding to the blanket response that insinuated all hourly employees who are skilled are eligible for overtime - this is not always true.   And you are incorrect as to agreeing to being exempt on a contractual basis. If a non-skilled worker goes to an employer and agreed to work as an exempt dishwasher at $7.50 an hour, the employer will have trouble with FLSA whether or not it was agreed. To say otherwise would be counterintuitive to the purpose of the labor protections and would just be an unconscionable loophole to necessary worker protection laws. Also lawyer, but I don't do any employment law. Common law concepts like unconscionability and negligence can still be actionable, even if expressly waived, right? I've seen cases where a person signed a liability waiver but was still able to pursue a suit against the other side under a theory of negligence. The case I read stated that a liability waiver didn't absolve the defendant from his duty to take reasonable precautions. I disagree. Compensation is linked to a lot of factors, many of them too intangible to quantify in a simple 8-step chart. Maybe this works fine in a (very) small company. It would be very difficult to maintain in any large organization, and I would imagine that it makes recruiting good talent much harder.  I can see certain benefits too, but look - as an employee, I want to work in an environment where I can advocate for myself and, occasionally, negotiate for better compensation. Some people aren't good at these things, and frankly, that sucks for them. I'll eat their lunch if they let me. "EmploymentProTip, especially regarding boilerplate employment forms and larger companies:  When you get to something disagreeable like that, line it out and initial it.   I've done it several times over the years and nobody's ever come back to ask me about it. (Because they don't look at it - they just file it). **IF** they ever tried to enforce it, you just tell them to take a look at your contract. They're either going to end up with a) no enforceable noncompete or b) since they never counter-signed the agreement, it's not a valid contract (which still means - no noncompete)  Note that (b) above might come back to bite you if **you** need to depend on the employment contract, but I'm not sure that's ever happened in the modern ""employees are disposable resources"" age.   NOTE: While I am an attorney, this is not legal advice. Please seek the advice of an attorney licensed in your state."