In various places in ProVal’s output, you may encounter the term "number" or “headcount”. This term is shorthand for one of the following definitions, depending on where it is used:

1. The number of participant families that are either receiving benefits or have the possibility of receiving benefits in the future. This definition is used for active participants.
2. The number of participants (member or spouse) who are receiving now, or who may potentially receive in the future, one or more benefits from the plan. This definition is used for initial inactive and emerging inactive participants.

An active member who decrements switches from Definition 1 to Definition 2.

Participants or families stop contributing to the headcount when there is no longer a liability associated with them.

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Emerging Inactive Participants - Multiple Benefit Definitions and Election Probabilities

If there are multiple benefits for the same participant within a contingency (e.g., a participant is assumed to receive both a medical and a dental benefit upon retirement), the benefits are combined by taking the maximum headcount across benefits. Thus, ProVal implicitly assumes that benefits resulting in headcounts are paid to the same participants as much as possible. For example, if a participant has a 90% probability of electing the medical benefit, and a 50% chance of electing the dental benefit, ProVal will assume that the 50% who get the dental benefit are part of the 90% who get the medical benefit and the headcount will be 0.9.