Advisers Latest

Payroll and benefits outsourcing provider Paychex has acquired online 401(k) administrator ePlan Services.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress are launching a fresh attack on the healthcare law by targeting grants to states for creating insurance exchanges, just as congressional budget analysts said on Thursday setting up the marketplaces may be delayed.

A corporate health care exchange run by Aon Hewitt is “open and ready for business,” according to Ken Sperling, global health & benefits practice leader for the human resource consulting firm. Aon Hewitt Announced last week that it is launching the exchange for employer groups of 1,000 or more full-time employees beginning as early as January 2012. While the infrastructure — based on Aon Hewitt’s existing retiree benefit exchange model with 2.4 million participants — is built, the timing depends on securing a viable number of both employer and insurance company participants.

Two Republican congressional leaders have written to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman demanding information on how the IRS is spending $1 billion in funds the agency received under the health care reform law.

Retirement plan participants who don’t own a long-term care insurance policy and instead choose to self-insure for any LTCI needs in the future run the risk of seeing their life savings decimated by major medical expenses, cautions Jonas Roeser, senior vice president of marketing and operations for LTC Financial Partners LLC.

I enjoyed the article, "Is stop-loss the answer?" on page 14 of the April issue. I started my insurance career marketing and selling self-funded plans and spent time as a stop-loss sales representative for a managing general underwriter, so self funding is near and dear to my heart. I agree with the comments in the article that self funding is a viable option to consider for larger groups. Heck, I even had a couple of 20-life groups that ran successful self-funded plans for many years. That said, there are deep issues to consider if you are not proficient in self-funded plans.

This month I thought I'd deviate from my normal approach and follow up on a previous column using a case study approach.

As I am writing this, my two-year-old is smacking my leg, trying to crawl onto my lap and attempting to commandeer the keyboard. All of these "adorable" antics make it difficult for me to work, type, or even think.

Growth in the long-term care market has been on the upswing the past several years. The turbulent economy and recent changes to health care have increased awareness of this valuable protection. Employers are taking this time to re-evaluate their employee benefits and many see LTC insurance as a product that can be easily added to a benefit plan without a lot of additional costs.

Want to know how workplace voluntary benefits can be your new secret weapon in sales? Read on. But first, a tale of three benefit brokers...