About the fund Hard-won benefits for hard working members

Founded in 1953, the UNITE HERE Local 11 Health Benefit Fund provides high quality, affordable health insurance and benefits to union members and their families.

About the Fund

The UNITE HERE Local 11 Health Benefit Fund (formerly Santa Monica UNITEHERE! Health Benefit Fund) is a self-funded and self-administered Taft-Hartley trust that is jointly managed by a Board of Trustees made up of union and employer representatives.

Benefits are funded by participating employer contributions paid under the terms of negotiated labor agreements. The Fund provides coverage to approximately 10,000 active participants.

Benefits are collectively bargained and include:

  • Medical

  • Prescription

  • Dental

  • Vision

  • Life and AD&D insurance

  • Member Assistance Program (MAP)

Please refer to your plan documents for specific coverage information.

Contact the Fund

UNITE HERE Local 11 Health Benefit Fund
1122 W. Washington Blvd, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Phone: (866) 345-5189
Email: help@benefits11.org

Office hours: 8:30am – 4:30pm
(Monday through Friday)
Closed on major holidays.
There is an after-hour answering machine to leave a message on.

Board of Trustees

Appointed by the union and certain employers, the Board of Trustees of the Fund design, administer, and maintain the Health Benefit Plan.

Employer Trustees

Teri Serrano
Yohanys Lamas Castro

Union Trustees

Kurt Petersen
Tom Walsh
Austin Lynch
Karine Mansoorian (Alternate Trustee)

History

For many decades the Santa Monica Culinary Health Fund covered thousands of members of Local 814, representing LAX workers and hotel workers in Santa Monica and areas of the South Bay. The Fund’s name changed to Santa Monica UNITE HERE Health Benefit Fund in the early 2000s. During the pandemic, the Fund grew by many additional thousands of members from Orange County, Downtown LA, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and other parts of Southern California joined the Fund. As the geographic reach of the Fund has increased, the new Fund name of UNITE HERE Local 11 Health Benefit Fund was chosen by trustees to better represent the members it serves.

Over the years, the plan has been able to expand and offer more choices of benefits to members, from Kaiser Permanente to VSP Vision, to MLK Care. In 2025, the UNITE HERE Health Center opened as a better and more comprehensive way to provide healthcare to members.