40A:10-17. Contracts for group insurance, individual retirement annuity programs or individual retirement accounts

Any local unit or agency thereof, herein referred to as employers, may:

a. Enter into contracts of group life, accidental death and dismemberment, hospitalization, dental, medical, surgical, major medical expense, or health and accident insurance with any insurance company or companies authorized to do business in this State, or may contract with a nonprofit hospital service or medical service or dental service corporation with respect to the benefits which they are authorized to provide respectively. The contract or contracts shall provide any one or more of such coverages for the employees of such employer and may include their dependents;

b. Enter into a contract or contracts to provide drug prescription and other health care benefits, or enter into a contract or contracts to provide drug prescription and other health care benefits as may be required to implement a duly executed collective negotiation agreement, or as may be required to implement a determination by a local unit to provide such benefit or benefits to employees not included in collective negotiations units;

c. Enter into a contract with an insurance company authorized to do business in this State to provide to its employees on a group or individual basis, individual retirement annuities, as defined by section 408(b) of the Federal Internal Revenue Code of 1954 as amended (26 U.S.C. s. 408(b)). The contract shall provide for coverage under these annuities of any employee of the employer and may provide for the establishment of annuities on behalf of the spouse of the employee.

Nothing herein contained shall be deemed to authorize coverage of dependents of an employee under a group life insurance policy or to allow the issuance of a group life insurance policy under which the entire premium is to be derived from funds contributed by the insured employees.

L.1979, c. 230, s. 1, eff. Oct. 15, 1979. Amended by L.1980, c. 145, s. 1, eff. Nov. 12, 1980; L.1983, c. 445, s. 2, eff. Jan. 9, 1984.