Editorial Staff

Various months are designated throughout the year to educating consumers about the need for a particular insurance product line or service to ease financial burdens.

Dave Cirulis recently was named head of voluntary marketplace strategy for distribution at Lincoln Financial Group, which has spruced up its product portfolio as well as enrollment, service and technology capabilities. He reports directly to Robert Risk, the insurer’s vice president, group protection sales.

In response to a new American Payroll Association survey showing 43% of employees valuing health benefits more important than higher wages, Dan Maddux, the group’s executive director has suggested that employees consider pretax voluntary payroll deductions and flexible spending accounts to ease the sting of rising health care costs and uncertainty about health care reform.

Podcast: Strategic alliances can serve as an inexpensive foothold into the voluntary benefits marketplace for vendors that seek to broaden ...

Long-term care (LTC) insurance is back in the headlines, with several leading insurance carriers seeking rate increases to help offset investment shortfalls in an ultra-low interest rate environment and greater-than-expected plan usage.

Unless the lame-duck Congress acts to extend the Bush-era tax cuts about to expire at the end of 2010, the income tax rates that will take effect Jan. 1, 2011 will return to the rates that were in effect a decade ago. The result: More money will be withheld from paychecks, according to an analyst at the tax publisher CCH.

Sun Life Financial Inc. recently enhanced its emergency travel assistance service for group basic life customers by adding identity theft protection.

Anthem Blue Cross Life and Health Insurance Company recently enhanced its Resource Advisor member-assistance service to include Beneficiary Companion and Identity Theft Victim Recovery Services programs at no additional cost to customers.

One pet peeve of employers, brokers and carriers is that employees don’t spend enough time reviewing their benefit plans during open enrollment.

The boundary between voluntary and employer-paid benefit sales is disappearing in an increasingly competitive climate where more brokers are abandoning territorial patterns, suggests new research from Eastbridge Consulting Group.