Healthcare

For executives and other high net worth individuals, an emerging voluntary benefit addition is survivorship life insurance - an area benefits professionals may want to explore when crafting executive benefits packages.

Predicting an employee's future success at a company has traditionally stumped experts, and relying on metrics, such as IQ level, only tells 25% of the story. What makes up the other 75%, according to Shawn Achor, Harvard researcher and positive psychology expert, is the belief that your behavior matters, a positive social support system, and whether you view a challenge as a stress or an impetus to improve.

At its peak in the early 1990s, there were over 2,000 recordkeepers serving retirement plans - today there are fewer than 60. In light of service-provider profit pressures from declining margins, sponsor fee sensitivity caused by litigation and Department of Labor's fee-disclosure regulations, finding the right plan vendor for the right price can be a challenge.

By 2014, the under-30 population will become the majority of the workforce, a title once held by baby boomers. During this transition, employers must revisit their strategies for engaging younger populations in health care decision-making and lifestyle improvement.

Like a lot of companies, Veridian Credit Union wants its employees to be healthier. In January, the Waterloo, Iowa-company rolled out a wellness program and voluntary screenings.

The excise tax remains employers’ No. 1 concern with the health care reform law, with 45% of employers surveyed recently by Mercer citing it as a significant concern.

New research released Thursday from Guardian Life shows that 62% of workers now enroll online for their employee benefits, compared to only 29% in 2005. In the past year alone, the use of online benefits enrollment increased by 8 percentage points, which represents a significant shift in how employees learn about, evaluate and interact with their benefits programs.

The younger the customer, the more they will want a guaranteed income after retirement is the first takeaway for insurers from a Prudential survey about retirement planning.

With responsibility comes opportunity . . . when we take on more responsibility for the way we live our lives and the health care choices we make, we earn opportunities for a better life. How? Choose to live a healthy lifestyle. Eat righ, check out Dr. Gundry on Google for some good advice. Get enough sleep, always easier said than done, but so worth the effort. Workout, find a cardio routine that you enjoy and do…

The culmination of years of consolidation among health insurers is restricting competition in four out of five metropolitan areas in the United States, new analysis from the American Medical Association finds.