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W E L F A R E

Vision & Hearing Benefits

Introduction
The Savannah ILA Welfare Plan provides valuable vision and hearing coverage designed to provide you and your family solid financial protection if you are faced with vision or hearing care needs. The plan also covers exams to promote good vision and hearing health.

How It Works for Active Eligible Employees and All Eligible Retirees
The vision care coverage pays benefits for active and eligible retired participants for vision examinations, glasses and contact lenses according to a schedule of set dollar amounts. The vision care services you receive must be provided by a physician or optometrist.

GEORGIA STEVEDORE ASSOCIATION - INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION

For Plan Year Beginning January 1, 2008

Vision Benefits

* The schedule amount for each covered service changes from time to time. You'll receive an updated schedule if changes are made.

What Vision Care Does Not Cover
Vision care benefits will not be paid for charges for:

• vision care services or supplies necessary as a result of work-related injury or in connection with an illness that is covered by Workers' Compensation or a similar law
• eye examinations required
  • for employment if the employer is required to provide the exam according to a labor agreement
  • by any governmental body
• replacing lenses or frames that have been lost, stolen or broken
• sunglasses - plain or prescription
• medical or surgical care of eye disease or injury, including radial keratotomy
• artificial eyes
• any visual training, reading rate or comprehensive studies
• tinted lenses or any lenses not prescribed by a physician or optometrist
• any service performed or supplies provided for special procedures such as orthoptics, or any aids for sub-normal vision
• lenses or frames ordered while covered but received more than 60 days after coverage ends
• any vision care services or supplies ordered before your coverage begins, or after coverage ends
• any expenses except charges in connection with your first lenses prescription or a prescription changed while you are covered
• any expenses paid by other group insurance you have.

How To File A Vision Care Claim
You need to file a claim for any vision care services you receive.

• Complete a vision care claim form available from the Welfare Fund Office.
• Attach the original bills to the claim form and make sure the bills include the participant's name and Social Security number, the patient's name, description of treatment, diagnosis, date of service, amount charged, facility where service was received, provider's tax identification number, and provider's signature.
• Return your completed form to the Welfare Fund Office.
• All claims must be filed within two years of treatment.
• If you filed a duplicate claim with another plan, please include all statements of payment or denial.
• Benefits will be paid directly to you unless you assign benefits to the provider by completing the appropriate section of the claim form.

See the Important Information Section for information on appealing a denied claim.

Hearing Care Coverage

How It Works for Active Eligible Employees and All Eligible Retirees
Hearing care coverage pays a benefit for hearing examinations, appliances and appliance repair for active and retired participants. Benefits are paid for eligible services until you reach the lifetime maximum of $11,000.

Hearing Benefits

What Hearing Care Coverage Does Not Cover
Hearing care benefits will not be paid for:

• hearing care services and supplies needed as a result of an injury that is work-related
• hearing care services and supplies needed as a result of sickness or disease for which benefits are payable under Workers' Compensation or similar laws
• hearing examinations or testing required by an employer as a condition of employment
• any examinations, evaluation tests or hearing aids that do not meet professionally accepted standards of practice, including services or supplies that are experimental and that are not approved by a physician
• hearing aids ordered while covered but delivered more than 60 days after coverage ends
• expenses as a result of more than one audiometric examination, hearing aid evaluation test or hearing aid during a calendar year
• replacement of hearing aids lost or broken, unless the lost or broken hearing aid was provided at least three years before replacement.

How To File A Hearing Care Claim
You need to file a claim for any hearing care services you receive.

• Complete a hearing care claim form available from the Welfare Fund Office.
• Attach the original bills to the claim form and make sure the bills include the participant's name and Social Security number, the patient's name, description of treatment, diagnosis, date of service, amount charged, facility where service was received, provider's tax identification number, and provider's signature.
• Return your completed form to the Welfare Fund Office.
  All claims must be filed within two years of treatment.
• If you filed a duplicate claim with another plan, please include all statements of payment or denial.
• Benefits will be paid directly to you unless you assign benefits to the provider of hearing care services by completing the appropriate section of the claim form.

See the Important Information Section for information on appealing a denied claim.

Coordinating Benefits With Other Coverages
The vision and hearing plans are designed to help you meet the high cost of covered expenses, but they are not intended to pay benefits greater than your actual cost. If you, your spouse, or your dependents have duplicate coverage under any other group healthcare plan, then benefits payable under this plan will be coordinated with the benefits payable under the other plan.

The total benefits paid by both programs will not be more than 100% of the total allowable expenses.

Other group healthcare expense plans that are coordinated with the Welfare Fund Plan are:

• any other group healthcare coverage
• local, state or governmental program, except school accident insurance coverage and Medicaid
• automobile insurance.

Allowable expenses means any reasonable and customary charges that are eligible for coverage under this plan.

Order of Benefit Payment
Here are the guidelines for determining which plan pays benefits first for you and your dependents. The plan that pays second provides benefits toward the balance of your cost.

• Benefits available through automobile insurance coverage
  will be primary at all times.
• The benefits of a plan that covers the person as an employee will pay first.
• The plan that covers the person as an active employee pays benefits before a plan that covers the person as a laid-off or retired participant.
• For a dependent child
  • When the parents are married and the plans of both parents cover the child as a dependent, the plan of the parent whose birthday comes first in each calendar year will pay first. If both parents have the same birthday, the plan that has covered one of the parents the longest will pay first. If the other plan, however, does not determine order of benefit payment according to the birthday rule, and the plans don't agree on order of payment as a result, the rule in the other plan will determine the order that benefits are paid.
  • When the parents are legally separated or divorced
• if there is a court decree that establishes the financial responsibility for the medical and health care expenses of the child, the plan that covers the child as a dependent of the parent with such financial responsibility will pay first
• if there is no court decree, the plan that covers the child as the dependent of the parent with custody will pay first
• If the parent with custody has remarried,
• the plan of the parent with custody pays first
• the plan of the stepparent with custody pays next
• the plan of the parent without custody pays next
• If the parents have joint custody and there are no specific terms of a court decree stating which parent is responsible for the child's health care expenses, the birthday rule will apply
• When these rules do not establish an order of benefit payment, the plan that has covered the person for the longer period of time will pay first.

When This Plan is Secondary
Regardless what other coverage you may have, benefits from this plan, together with benefits from all coverages, will not be more than the usual percentage paid by this plan alone.

Refund for Overpayment
If this plan pays benefits greater than it should have paid under the coordination of benefit rules, the plan has a right to recover the excess from:

• the covered person for whom benefits were paid
• insurance companies
• other organizations.

When Vision and Hearing Coverage Ends

Active Employees
Your eligibility for benefits as an active employee will terminate on either:

• the date the plan is terminated
• the date the plan is amended to terminate the benefits of a class of employees of which you are a member
• the date the plan is amended to terminate coverage for a specific benefit for a class of employees of which you are a member
• for employees employed in the Manager's Office, the Georgia Stevedore Association Office, Container Inspectors, the local unions of the International
  Longshoremen's Association and officers of the International residing in the Savannah, Georgia District for whom contributions are required, the date your employment ends. If you choose to continue your coverage under COBRA, however, coverage will end on the last day of the calendar month in which your employment ends.

For all other employees
Your eligibility for benefits will terminate:

• the December 31 following a plan year in which you work less than 700 credited hours
• the date you retire with 10 or more years of Credited
  Service under the Georgia Stevedore Association –
  International Longshoremen's Association Pension Plan-
  in this case, you become covered as a retiree
  • if you retire with less than 10 years of service under
  the Georgia Stevedore Association – International
  Longshoremen's Association pension plan, the
  December 31 following a plan year in which you work
  less than 700 credited hours
• the date of your death
  
  ...whichever occurs first.

Retirees
Your insurance as a retiree ends if:

• you no longer receive a pension from the Georgia Stevedore Association – International Longshoremen's Association Pension Plan
• the plan is amended to terminate retiree benefits
• the plan terminates
• you die.

Dependents
Your dependents' insurance will terminate when:

• your insurance terminates, including at your death
• the dependent no longer meets the definition of an eligible dependent
• the plan is amended to terminate dependent coverage
• the plan terminates.

If your insurance as an active participant terminates because of your death, your dependents' coverage will continue until December 31 of the year in which your death occurred. If your death occurs during a plan year in which you worked at least 700 credited hours, or during the three month period following the plan year, your dependents' coverage will remain in effect until December 31 of the calendar year after the calendar year in which your death occurs.

Continuation of Coverage

Family and Medical Leave Act
The plan will provide coverage to comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Contact your employer for information about FMLA leave and how your benefits will work during leave.

Continuation of Coverage - COBRA
Under federal law, there are situations when you and your enrolled dependents may choose to continue healthcare coverage when your coverage would otherwise end.
Continuation coverage is provided through the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, called COBRA.

Qualifying Events
Under COBRA, you and your enrolled dependents may choose to continue coverage that would otherwise end because:

• your hours of employment are reduced
• your employment is terminated for reasons other than gross misconduct
• you did not return to work after an unpaid leave under the
  Family and Medical Leave Act or you terminate employment during the leave
• your required contributions increase as a result of a reduction in hours of employment, even if coverage does not end.

The events listed above that make you eligible to choose continuation coverage are called "qualifying events." This coverage may be continued for up to 18 months. If you choose to continue coverage, you must pay 102% of the full cost of coverage.

If the Social Security Administration determines that you or your dependent is disabled at the time of your termination or reduction in hours of employment, or at any time during the first 60 days of continuation coverage, the disabled individual and all family members with continuation coverage arising from the same qualifying event may be eligible for an additional 11 months of coverage (29 months total). If a child is born to or placed for adoption with you while you are continuing coverage and the child is determined to be disabled within the first 60 days of COBRA coverage, the child and all family members with continuation coverage arising from the same qualifying event may be eligible for a total of up to 29 months of continuation coverage. You must pay the required cost of the continued coverage. To receive the disability extension, you or a family member must notify the Welfare Fund Office within 60 days of the determination from the Social Security Administration and within the initial 18 months of COBRA coverage.

If You Die, Divorce or Become Covered by Medicare
Under COBRA, your spouse and children may have up to 36 months (three years) of COBRA continuation coverage if their healthcare coverage ends because:

• you die
• you and your spouse are divorced or legally separated
• you become covered by Medicare.

Note that, if you become covered by Medicare before a reduction in hours or employment termination, coverage for your covered dependents may be continued for up to 18 months from the termination of employment or reduction in
hours, or for up to 36 months from the date you became covered by Medicare, whichever is longer.

If Your Children No Longer Qualify as Dependents
If your dependent child's medical coverage ends because he or she no longer qualifies as an eligible dependent under the plan, that child can choose continuation coverage and keep it for up to 36 months.

If You Have or Adopt a Child
A child born to or placed for adoption with an employee while the employee is enrolled in continuation coverage may be immediately added to continuation coverage. You must notify the Welfare Fund Office of the birth or adoption and elect coverage for your child within the plan's otherwise applicable enrollment period for newborns or adopted children.

Action Needed
When divorce, legal separation or loss of dependent status occurs, you, your spouse or your enrolled dependent must notify the Welfare Fund Office within 60 days of the event or the date coverage ends, whichever is later. You also must notify the Welfare Fund Office if you become eligible for coverage under Medicare.

If you fail to notify within the 60-day time limit, you or your dependent will not be eligible for continuation coverage. When you notify the Welfare Fund Office, you also must include a current mailing address so the Welfare Fund Office can send the eligible person a COBRA enrollment form and cost information. Each eligible covered person can make an independent election regarding COBRA coverage. The eligible person must elect coverage by completing the form, and returning it to the Welfare Fund Office within 60 days after these two events:

• the date coverage would be lost because of one of the events described here, or
• the date of the notice you receive from the company, whichever comes later.

If the person does not elect coverage by returning the form within this 60-day period, coverage will end as of the date of the event that terminated coverage.

For other events that may entitle you to COBRA continuation coverage, the Welfare Fund Office will notify you of your rights and the actions you must take to elect coverage.

Rights to Same Coverage, Changes in Coverage
If an eligible person chooses COBRA continuation coverage, the coverage available will be identical to that provided to comparably situated employees or family members. You do not have to show evidence of insurability to elect continuation coverage. You will have the same opportunity to change coverage as active employees. Also, if the coverage provided to similarly situated employees changes, the coverage provided to anyone with COBRA continuation coverage will also change in the same manner. Your COBRA rights are provided as required by law. If the law changes, your rights will change accordingly.

When COBRA Coverage Ends
An eligible person's COBRA continuation coverage will end if:

• The person later becomes covered under another group health plan. If the new group health plan excludes benefits because of a pre-existing condition, the person may continue COBRA coverage through the end of the COBRA eligibility period.
• The person first becomes covered by Medicare after the date on which COBRA is elected.
• The person is extending 18-month coverage because of disability, and the person is no longer disabled as defined by the Social Security Act. In this case, coverage for any family members who have continuation coverage based on the same disability will also end. You must notify the Welfare Fund Office within 30 days of the determination that the person is no longer disabled.
• the Joint Board of Trustees stops providing healthcare coverage for employees.
• The 18-, 29-, or 36-month COBRA period ends.
• The person fails to make required contributions.

Initial Payment
You have 45 days from the date you elect continuation coverage to pay the premiums due for all months since your coverage ended. Payment is considered made on the date on which it is postmarked.