Voluntary

Critical illness insurance covers more diseases than in the past and is increasingly marketed as a financial protection product.

Disability insurance experts with Guardian Life Insurance Company have developed an index for measuring and predicting the success of companies’ absence management programs in conjunction with their short-term and long-term disability programs.

MetLife polled hundreds of human resource and benefits professionals about legal services in a voluntary package, and the top reason given among those who make the offering is improving employee satisfaction (69%).

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.

Barry Lundquist, president of the Council for Disability Awareness, says his group has had a solid start in its effort to educate on the dangerous gaps in long-term coverage.

Proposed changes would have required the tracking of unscheduled intermittent leave, a move opposed by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Among the noninsurance products available to help employee stress are education programs and credit counseling.

There’s no end in sight to rise of voluntary critical illness insurance benefits.

The overall pace of investment prompted Forrester to warn insurers making only limited mobile efforts soon will lose competitive ground to insurers more aggressively pursuing the technology.

Ninety-eight percent of American businesses have fewer than 100 employees and, according to new numbers from LIMRA, the number of small employers offering benefits is at its lowest level in 20 years.