An official State of Texas website.
Revision 11-3; Effective September 1, 2011
A presidential-declared emergency hardship exemption will automatically be granted to recipients living in the declared area and premiums will be waived for three months. Recipients do not have to request a hardship for a presidential-declared emergency. TIERS will send an "emergency special notice" to inform recipients at the start of the presidential-declared emergency period that the premiums have been waived.
For MBIC recipients, the waiver of premiums for a presidential-declared emergency is for the month of declaration and forward for a total of three months.
Hardship exemption and presidential-declared emergency periods can overlap. They do not run consecutively.
Example: A recipient has hardship exemption for January, February and March. A presidential-declared emergency is declared for March. The presidential-declared emergency hardship would normally be allowed for March, April and May. Total number of months the recipient is not required to pay premiums is five, which are January, February, March, April and May.
A presidential-declared emergency has priority over a hardship exemption if the two situations fall during the same time period. If a hardship exemption has been approved but a presidential-declared emergency is granted for the same time period, the client cannot have another hardship exemption for 12 months.
There is no limit to how many times a recipient may receive a presidential-declared emergency hardship; however, a recipient may only receive one presidential-declared emergency per disaster.