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“As an emerging market, DIAs have experienced significant growth in 2012,” says Joe Montminy, assistant vice president and director of LIMRA annuity research.

According to the soon-to-be-released UBA Ancillary Benefits Survey, of the 8,557 employers answering questions about employee assistance programs, only 21.8% of employers offer EAPS. That percentage drops to 9.4% among small (fewer than 50 employees) businesses and 19.2% among midsize companies (fewer than 500 employees). As advisers, we shouldn’t forget to incorporate these programs into our clients’ benefits plans. Though sometimes stigmatized, these programs are important, not only to help employees with personal crises such as divorce, substance abuse and financial or legal troubles, but also when an organization is reeling from an employee death, hurricane recovery or even tragedies like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Early bird gets the worm. That’s an applicable motto for the National Association of Health Underwriters Capitol Conference attendees, who packed into a hotel on Capitol Hill early Tuesday morning for an overflowing session of speakers, from a senator to a president of a health insurance enrollment non-profit to Mercer and Wellpoint representatives.

The answer to that question is still fuzzy. That’s because while the Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed to Employee Benefit Adviser that HRAs and HSAs will be offered on the public exchanges, the organization still hasn’t released the details and regulations surrounding these accounts.

When you take the 403(b) plan survey from the Plan Sponsor Council of America, you’ll get much more out of it than a discounted oil change.

This new feature will start your week with three important facts, developments or conversations from recent and upcoming events. This week, we look at NAHU’s Capitol Conference, new details on Mercer’s private exchange and what’s up for sequester as the Friday deadline looms.

“Those with an income shortfall are far more likely to be low-income, low-asset households, and they spend down their liquid assets at a far faster rate than households that do not have an income shortfall,” says one expert with the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The labor market is healing faster for immigrants than for U.S.-born workers as the growing economy favors those at the low and high ends of the pay scale.

President Barack Obama’s administration released a state-by-state report on how $85 billion in automatic spending cuts will degrade programs from defense to education to public health as White House officials say they don’t expect to avert reductions to start March 1.

Mercer is one of the latest companies to enter the private exchange game, and the consulting giant gave employers an opportunity to check out the service during a conference call Thursday. Company executives revealed some of those specifics during the call, especially during the Q&A period for the audience.