Editorial Staff

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.