Richard Stolz

401(k) plans have spun a leak, as a growing number of in-service withdrawals are hurting retirement readiness.

The rest of the world is following the U.S. lead in embracing the defined contribution model of retirement savings plans, with America’s employer-sponsored plans taking a huge share of global assets. And with those huge assets come huge risks.

Annuity providers are putting on a full-court press to encourage employers to give serious consideration to incorporating lifetime income solutions to their defined contribution plan participants.

Not all corporate data breaches are of the spectacular variety that health insurer Anthem recently announced, involving 80 million members. But any company that offers a wellness program needs to take special precautions to ensure employee health information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Significant numbers of Americans, and therefore employees, are stressing about their financial situation at a level deemed “too high” by the American Psychological Association.

A bipartisan legislative proposal to spur greater sponsorship of retirement plans by smaller employers and higher deferral levels by plan participants has been proposed once again in Washington.

Workers closing in on traditional retirement age may have to recompute the amount of money they’ll need to live comfortably, and significantly up their contributions to any workplace-sponsored retirement plan during their final working years.

The Affordable Care Act has a lot of work to do to get Americans more employer-based health coverage, particularly those working for small companies.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett affirms the principles of contract law.

Understanding where employees have gaps in their retirement literacy can help employers craft better education programs.

North American employers may take some – but not much – comfort in the knowledge that medical trend rates are a lot worse in other parts of the world.

President Obama will use tonight’s State of the Union address to revive previously announced proposals intended both to spur greater retirement savings and to limit retirement plan tax benefits for higher income earners.

Growth of high-deductible health plans continues to outpace other medical plan types – even in the face of lower employer contributions to health savings accounts.

Mid-sized and larger organizations are still struggling with at least three key ACA compliance requirements: exchange notice management, annual health care reporting and penalty management.

Few plan sponsors have bought into the idea of annually automatically re-enrolling participants in a qualified default investment alternative, such as a target-date fund, as a means of assuring that their assets are allocated in a manner experts would consider appropriate for retirement investing.

The advent of private and public health care exchanges has expanded employers’ horizons to consider subsidizing pre-Medicare eligible retiree health benefits through the individual market.

A set of tax proposals issued today by Rep. Chris VanHollen (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, may lay the foundation for Democratic employee benefit-related legislation this year and beyond.

A recent increase in formations of employee stock ownership plans, known as ESOPs, has put the spotlight on the combined employee benefit and small business management succession tool that has been in existence since 1956.

What gives brokers a competitive edge? In many cases, it’s giving clients the feeling that they are getting the maximum value for their investment in employee benefits.

While health plans with accompanying HSAs are becoming increasingly popular, there’s evidence that employees aren’t always seizing the opportunity to save, or save the maximum amount.