GENERAL RULES REGARDING COVERAGE

Enrollment

To receive benefits, you must have completed a FA Benefit Fund Enrollment Card. The Enrollment Card provides the Fund with necessary basic information: your name, address, Social Security number, birth date, marital status, etc. If you have not completed an Enrollment Card, it is essential that you do so at the earliest possible opportunity.

All correspondence addressed to the Fund must contain the member’s name and address. Please notify the Fund Office, in writing, of any changes of name, address, etc. Maintenance of current records assures efficient processing of your claim and prompt receipt of your benefits.

Appeals to the Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees of the FA Benefit Fund adopts rules and regulations for the payment of benefits and all provisions in this booklet are subject to such rules and regulations and to the Agreement and Declaration of Trust, which established the Fund and governs its actions.

A covered member may request a review of action taken by the Fund Office by submitting an appeal, in writing, to the Board of Trustees of Faculty Association of Suffolk Community College Benefit Fund, 533 College Road, Southampton Building, Room 224D, Selden, New York 11784.

If you wish to make an appointment to consult a lawyer for benefits provided, call 631-732-6500.

You will be provided with an attorney from a panel law firm selected by the Fund. This firm will provide you with the benefits of the Fund. Your relationship with this law firm will be that of attorney and client. The attorney-client relationship will be exclusively between the covered member and the law firm. No employee of the Fund or any Trustee of the Fund can interfere in this relationship.

The Fund is designed to help pay for covered legal services. While the Fund cannot pay for all legal costs you have, it will help meet a substantial amount of such costs. You should explore with an attorney of the panel law firm the cost involved for any problem for which you seek help, so that you and the law firm, will have a working concept of what services are covered as well as what you will have to pay. Remember, however, that it is not always possible to estimate total costs. When, after general consultation with the panel law firm, you decide to retain the panel law firm, you will then be required to make the appropriate payment as indicated in the plan of benefits.

You are not compelled to use the plan provided by the Fund. You are free at all times to select an attorney of your own choosing and to make payment to such attorney for services. However, the Fund will not absorb nor be responsible for any part of the fees or charges of attorneys other than those representing law firms on the panel for the legal services program. You are also free at any time to discontinue the services of the panel law firm, and if you desire, to secure the services of a non-panel attorney. However, in such an event the Fund will neither be responsible for nor absorb any part of the fees or charges of non-panel attorneys. In addition, you continue to be obligated to the panel law firm for any cost incurred above the scheduled amount.

The panel law firm may, under exceptional circumstances, at any time (as is customary in the case of the independent retention of private attorneys) not undertake, discontinue or withdraw from representation of any covered member with appropriate adjustment of fees. In such cases, you are free to secure your own counsel. However, the Fund will neither absorb nor be responsible for any of the fees or charges of a non-panel attorney.

If you are an active member, you do not have to pay any subscription or registration fee to obtain the benefits of the Fund.

In instances where two covered members are involved in the same controversy or proceedings as adversaries, (and both members would have the right to the benefit under the rules of the Fund) each member will be provided access to an attorney, or provided with a stipend by the Fund, as determined by the Board of Trustees.