Healthcare

While health care costs are growing more slowly than in years past, the increases are unsustainable over the long-term, say those in the industry.

While small-business employers are just as keen on providing the same benefits as their big-business counterparts, a recent study says employers can look at offering competitive voluntary benefits as a way to entice employees and boost employee retention.

Supplemental benefit SurgeryPlus is a new product offering for advisers, especially those who work with self-funded clients.

One recent court case suggests your employer clients should consider including disclaimers in benefit notices to protect against changes in retirement plan payouts.

Retirement plan administrators routinely receive requests from employees to accept rollover contributions. When processing these requests, plan administrators must be mindful of IRS guidelines.

A handful of letters from trade groups and the Chamber of Commerce reject as “premature and imprudent” the DOL’s proposal to require retirement plan service providers supply guides to fee disclosures.

A new proposal to raise Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation premiums to the tune of $25 billion over the next decade for companies that offer defined benefit pension plans is being contested. Not surprisingly, many in charge of administering their company’s pension benefits see the increase as crippling to their industry and the economy.

The breakdown of states running their own health insurance exchanges versus those using the federally facilitated marketplace will change in due time – but exactly how it will change is still up in the air, said a speaker at Wednesday’s National Health Insurance Exchange Summit, held in Washington, D.C.

The concept of limiting coverage of spouses through the implementation of a surcharge or waiver program has been talked about for years. This is a microcosm of the employee benefits environment where employers are considering every possible cost-control strategy.

Analytics and the use of big data by corporate America are increasingly growing as companies look to make better business decisions. Client, internal information and databases collected over long periods of time are helping companies better understand their business and where to spend their money. The same is true for public retirement systems.