I suspect its because of the way that COBRA works: COBRA would start for them on October 1st (their active employee insurance would cover them until Sep 30), so they are getting three months. I have never seen a health insurance that supported two week increments, so you couldn't do the 'two weeks for tenure' thing. You could, in theory offer an extra month per year beyond the first, but that's a lot of extra work and expense to go into, offering it, for something that I suspect will have very little pick-up. My guess is most everyone who is laid off today will have a job which will offer insurance by Jan 1st.