Health insurance

 

Note: Sempra Energy offers domestic-partner benefits for all health/welfare plans, such as medical, dental and vision.

Medical
You have a choice of up to five medical plans for you and your eligible dependents:

• Blue Cross HMO,
• Blue Cross Plus,
• PacifiCare,
• Kaiser or
• Safety Net.

You share the cost of medical insurance with the company.

Dental
You have a choice of up to two dental plans for you and your eligible dependents:

• Delta Dental or
• SafeGuard.

The company pays the full premium for SafeGuard dental insurance. You share the premium cost for Delta Dental insurance.

Vision
Vision Service Plan (VSP) provides coverage for exams, lenses, frames and contact lenses. You can choose to go to a VSP provider or non-VSP provider. If you go to a VSP provider, after your deductible, the plan pays the full cost for an exam and lenses every year. Contact lenses are in lieu of glasses, and you can get them every two years, rather than every year.

The yearly deductible is $40 maximum ($15 co-payment for exam and $25 co-payment for materials). The company pays for your coverage. You pay the full cost for dependent coverage.

 

Life insurance

Basic employee life: Company-paid coverage provides one times your salary with the option to reduce this amount to $10,000 or 50 percent of your yearly salary. You can buy supplemental coverage for up to six times your salary through Cigna's Group Universal Life (GUL) Plan. You may need to provide evidence of insurability for coverage in excess of the guaranteed amount (two times your yearly salary).

Dependent life (available through the GUL Plan):

• Spouse: option to purchase $10,000 to $100,000 worth of coverage. You may have to provide evidence of insurability.
• Children: option to purchase $5,000 or $10,000 worth of coverage per child.

Long-term disability

The company provides long-term disability coverage at no cost to you. After three months of continuous disability, and upon your disability claim being approved, the plan provides 60 percent of your monthly salary from all sources of disability income up to $12,000 per month. You're automatically enrolled on the first day of the month after your hire date.

Long-term care

Long-term care covers nursing home or similar custodial-care costs that aren't covered by your medical plan or Medicare. You may choose from four plans to cover you and your eligible dependents. Approval of coverage is automatic if you enroll within 31 days of your hire date. You may enroll your spouse during this time with simplified approval procedures. After 31 days, your application is subject to standard underwriting procedures.

Accidental death & dismemberment (AD&D)

Employee AD&D: Company-paid coverage provides one times your yearly salary, up to a maximum of $750,000 with the option to reduce this coverage amount to $10,000 or 50 percent of your yearly salary. You can buy supplemental AD&D coverage for up to 10 times your yearly salary, to a maximum coverage of $1,000,000.

Dependent AD&D: You can only get this coverage if you buy supplemental AD&D coverage. Coverage amounts depend on the structure of your family:

• Spouse only: 60 percent of employee benefit.
• Spouse and children: 50 percent and 20 percent of your coverage amount.
• Children only: 25 percent of your coverage amount. Child coverage may not exceed $75,000 per child.

Cash-Balance Pension Plan

During every month you work, the company credits your Cash Balance account with a percent of your eligible earnings base pay and incentive pay). As a regular employee with one year of eligibility service (defined as working 1,000 hours or more during a 12-month period), your account is set up and keeps growing.

After five years of employment or service, your Cash Balance account is vested. This account is portable, and/or in the event of your death, payable to your beneficiary. The plan provides vested employees with a range of payment options, if you leave or retire from the company:

• you can leave the account with the company,
• you can take a lump-sum distribution or
• you can receive a monthly annuity as a retiree.

The company pays for this plan entirely; no employee contribution is required or allowed. Your account grows by the monthly company credits and monthly interest payments tied to the 30-year Treasury bond.

401(k) Savings Plan (with company match)

Upon your hire date, you become eligible to take part in the company's 401(k) Savings Plan. You can contribute up to 25 percent of your eligible earnings (base pay and incentive pay) as a before-tax or after-tax contribution, or a combination of the two, as long as the total doesn't exceed 25 percent. If you're 50 or older, you may contribute an extra “catch-up contribution” as prescribed by federal law.

After one year of service (defined as 1,000 or more hours in a 12-month period) the company will match, in Sempra Energy stock, 50 cents for each dollar you contribute up to a maximum company match of 3 percent of your eligible pay. Also, there's a provision for up to an extra 1-percent company contribution if yearly corporate performance goals are met under the company's Incentive Compensation Plan (ICP).

Unless you elect not to take part, the company automatically enrolls you in the 401(k) plan after 30 days of employment, at the 3-percent pretax-contribution level. Rehires aren't automatically re-enrolled and must contact the plan administrator to do so.

You can exceed the IRS 401(k) contribution limit if you've made 401(k) contributions in another employer's plan during a calendar year. Because we don't refund 401(k) contributions, it's your responsibility to monitor your contributions in regard to this IRS limit. To do this, you need to:

1. advise Payroll of the total 401(k) contribution you made into the prior employer's plan and
2. self-monitor your 401(k) contributions in the Sempra Energy 401(k) plan so that these two sources of contributions when totaled don't exceed the IRS yearly maximum.

Note: After your first year, Sempra Energy ensures that you won't exceed the IRS limits.

Tuition reimbursement: $5,250 per year

Full-time employees enrolled in classes to complete an associate degree, bachelor's degree, master's degree, professional certificate or individual foreign-language classes are eligible as of their hire date to get paid back up to $5,250 per year for these expenses:

 

• registration,
• tuition,
• required books and software,
• lab fees and
• campus parking fees.

After one year of service, part-time employees are eligible to get paid back up to $800 per year for the expenses listed above.

Paid time off: vacation/flex days/holidays/sick leave

Vacation

Completed years of employment	Vacation accrual rate
Less than one year	Up to 10 days per year
At least one year, but less than five years	10 days per year
At least five years, but less than 10 years	15 days per year
10 or more years	20 days per year

Vacation is accrued monthly based on the above schedule. You may carry over any unused vacation at the end of each year, up to a maximum of 120 hours. Vacation hours over 120 hours will be cashed out to you in the first pay period of January.

Sick-leave policy
Ten days (80 hours) of sick leave is provided per calendar year. Unused sick leave carries over to the next calendar year (up to a maximum of 90 days or 720 hours) for use during a short-term disability. Sick leave is prorated the first year based on your hire date.

Holidays
The company observes 10 holidays per year.

Flex days
Regular full-time employees are awarded three flex days on Jan. 1 of each year. Flex days are prorated for new hires.

Health-club membership subsidy

Sempra Energy's fitness program offsets the cost of a health-club membership to promote a healthy lifestyle. The program includes a subsidy for you and your family members to join a fitness facility that offers a combination of weight equipment, aerobic classes and trained instructors. Sempra Energy will pay you back for a one-time-only initiation fee up to a maximum of $150 and half of the monthly dues up to a maximum of $20 per month. Taking part is voluntary and is not job-related.

Through Sempra Energy's Energy for Life fitness-subsidy program, you can join 24-Hour Fitness at a low corporate rate. New employees are eligible to join at this special discounted rate throughout the year. You may add family members, such as your spouse, domestic partner or dependents during periodic company onsite-enrollment periods without initiation fees.

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

All full-time employees and their eligible family members can use the EAP at no cost, whether or not you enroll in a medical plan.

The EAP provides these services:

 

• clinical counseling,
• financial consultation,
• pre-retirement counseling,
• child-care consultations,
• elder-care consultations and
• legal counseling.

These services are provided to you or your eligible dependents for five sessions per person per incident per year.

Volunteer/giving incentive programs

Sempra Energy helps energize the communities where we do business through our involvement in programs that strengthen education, protect the environment, foster business and community development, and promote health. We invest energy, and volunteer time and financial resources to improve the quality of life.

Energy for Others: This is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public-benefit charitable corporation. Employees donate through voluntary payroll deductions and designate their contributions to the groups of their choice and/or donate directly to their local Energy for Others' fund. One hundred percent of all contributions made by employees are directed to their charities of choice or to the fund. Since it began, more than $500,000 has been raised each year and donated to charities in communities where employees work and live.

Matching Gifts Program: Regular, full-time employees with at least one year of service are eligible for company matches for contributions of $25 up to a total of $2,500 for gifts made each calendar year. The Matching Gifts Program was set up to broaden the company's support of education and arts and culture.

Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP): The company will make contributions of $100 for up to two different certified 501(c)(3) nonprofit groups per employee per year. All regular, full-time employees with at least 12 months of service may take part in this program. You must have volunteered at least eight hours during the past calendar year with the nonprofit group(s) to qualify.

Mass-transit/parking subsidy

The mass-transit subsidy provides all full- and part-time employees with up to $50 per month that you can apply toward the cost of a monthly pass to the trolley, bus, train or van pool.

If you work in downtown San Diego, Sempra Energy also has an agreement with a nearby parking structure and provides a parking subsidy for 50 percent of the monthly cost ($75 a month).