Office of Human Resources

All permanent, full-time and three-quarter-time employees (employed for the full academic year) at Appalachian State University are eligible to participate in the benefit programs listed on this website.

Permanent half-time employees are eligible to participate in the Health Plans by paying full cost. Tax Sheltered Annuities and the North Carolina Flexible Benefits Plan NCFlex are also available to permanent half-time employees.

Employees can complete enrollment and make changes online through their State Health Plan/NCFlex Benefits or UNC Benefits (for life insurance) enrollment site. To login, employees should use their ASU login credentials. The preferred browsers for accessing sites are Mozilla FireFox or Google Chrome.  

Newly eligible employees can choose to participate in any eligible state health, NCFlex, or UNC System Benefit within 30 days of their eligibility (i.e. hire date).  After election deadlines have passed, enrollments/changes/cancellations can only be made during annual enrollment or due to QLEs.

 QLEs (include but are not limited to) the following:

Eligible new-hires, or employees newly eligible for coverage due to an employment status change, have 30 calendar days starting from their hire or eligibility date to enroll in coverage. The coverage effective date would be the first day of the month following the month in which the hire date or status change date occurred.

If an existing employee is making changes during open enrollment, the changes made will take effect the beginning of the next plan year.

If an employee separates between the 1^st and the 15^th of the month, their State Health Plan coverage will terminate on the last day of the month in which their employment ends. If an employee separates between the 16^th and the last day of the month, their State Health Plan coverage will terminate on the last day of the month following the month in which their employment ends.

Employees may change plans every year during open enrollment.  The changes made during open enrollment will become effective the beginning of the next plan year.

Permanent or time-limited employees in an active pay status working 30 hours or more per week are eligible for the employer share of the premium. See current premium rates here.

The cost of coverage depends on the plan selected, employment status, hours worked per week, who’s covered, and completed wellness credits. Premiums are paid one month in advance and are deducted from an employee’s paycheck semi-monthly on a pre-tax basis.

An employee can earn a wellness premium credit by completing the tobacco attestation, which will reduce the monthly premium for both the 70/30 and 80/20 plan options. The wellness premium credit only applies to the employee premium. The tobacco attestation must be completed each year to receive the wellness premium credit.