The question to ask on day one
“Who is my employer of record — the agency or the company I’m placed at?”
It sounds administrative and it decides three practical things:
Benefits. Some staffing agencies offer their own plans to placed workers. The company you physically work at usually does not, because you are not its employee.
Workers’ compensation. A claim is filed against the employer’s coverage, and knowing which entity that is saves weeks. If an injury happens and the answer is unclear, file anyway — the state’s process sorts out which policy responds, and a claim filed on time with imperfect information beats a perfect one filed late. The full sequence.
The clocks. Waiting periods, eligibility thresholds and continuation rights all attach to the employer of record.
Get the answer in writing if you can. An email is a record.
Seasons and waiting periods do not fit together
The legal cap is clear: a group health plan may not make an otherwise eligible employee wait more than 90 calendar days, with an orientation period of up to one month permitted before it, and a cap of 1,200 cumulative hours where eligibility runs on hours instead of days.
The problem is arithmetic rather than law. A four-month season with a 90-day waiting period produces a few weeks of coverage, and a three-month one produces none at all.
Two things follow:
Ask for the date, not the formula. “Given my start date, what is the exact date my coverage would begin?” Then compare it to the end of the season. The 90-day rule.
Do not cancel other coverage in anticipation. If a season’s plan starts late and ends with the season, it may never be worth switching to at all.
When a season ends
If the season came with employer coverage and it is now ending, that is a loss of coverage — a qualifying event with a 60-day special enrollment window, plus continuation rights.
Two things to know about continuation in New York: federal COBRA does not reach employers with fewer than 20 employees, but New York’s own continuation does, from 2 employees, and carries the total to 36 months. Self-funded plans get neither: they stay on the federal 18 months, and only from 20 employees. COBRA or the marketplace.
And the sentence that costs the most, which applies here as everywhere: “I’ll take continuation now and switch to something cheaper later.” Voluntarily dropping it is not a qualifying event. Exhausting it is, and Medicaid, the Essential Plan and Child Health Plus have no season at all.
If the work is seasonal every year
It is worth setting the pattern up once rather than improvising annually:
- Estimate the full year including the off-season, not the working months alone.
- Apply for whatever that number qualifies you for. If it is the Essential Plan or Medicaid, there is no season to wait for and no event to prove.
- Report the change when the season starts — within 30 days — and again when it ends.
- If an employer plan is offered mid-season, price it against what you already have rather than assuming it is an upgrade. At $0 with no deductible, the Essential Plan is a high bar.
- Keep the dates. Start date, end date, last day of eligibility. They are what every clock counts from.
Questions people ask
Who is my employer if I work through a temp agency?
Usually the agency, as employer of record. Ask directly and get it in writing: it decides where benefits, workers’ compensation claims and waiting periods attach.
Can a seasonal job make me wait for coverage?
It can impose a waiting period of up to 90 calendar days, with up to a month of orientation before it. On a short season that can mean the coverage never starts, so ask for the exact date.
What covers me between seasons?
The Essential Plan at $0 a month up to 200% of the federal poverty level, or Medicaid below that. Neither has an enrollment season, and the off-season is when your projected income is lowest.
Do I have to wait for open enrollment?
Not for Medicaid, the Essential Plan or Child Health Plus. Those accept applications in any month.
My season ended and the plan with it. What now?
That is a loss of coverage: a 60-day special enrollment window plus continuation rights. In New York continuation reaches employers as small as 2 employees and runs to a total of 36 months for fully insured policies.
I was injured but I do not know who employs me. What do I do?
File the workers’ compensation claim anyway. The state’s process sorts out which policy responds, and the deadlines — 30 days to notify, two years to file — matter more than the certainty.
Sources
- 29 CFR 2590.715-2708 — prohibition on waiting periods that exceed 90 days (checked 2026-09-14)
- NY State of Health — Essential Plan (checked 2026-09-14)
- NYS Workers' Compensation Board — file a claim (checked 2026-09-14)
More in Coverage by the Kind of Work You Do
- Home Care Work: Covering the People Who Do the Covering — For home health aides, coverage depends on who employs you: an agency, CDPAP or a household. What union funds cover, and the thresholds written in hours.
- Construction: Two Different Systems, and Saying the Wrong One Costs You — On a construction site, the first sentence at the hospital desk decides whether workers' compensation pays the whole bill. Immigration status does not matter.
- Several Part-Time Jobs: Full-Time Hours, Nobody's Employee — Work fifty hours across three employers and none of them owes you coverage. The income still adds up for eligibility, and that combined number is usually the good news rather than the bad.
This page explains how the system works. It is not medical advice. More.