Tristan Lejeune

Sixty-nine percent of employers tells the IFEBP that they definitely plan to provide employer-sponsored health care when exchanges begin in 2014; in 2012, only 46% of companies were willing to commit to that.

A 65-year-old couple exiting the workforce in 2013 is estimated to need $220,000 to cover health care costs throughout their retirement, an 8% decrease from last year’s $240,000.

More than a third of Americans say they don’t feel financially secure, according to a survey from Unum. Moreover, the number of those who feel “not at all secure” is up from the last year. Women, meanwhile, feel more financially insecure than men.

In an advance copy of Disability Divide: Employer Study provided to EBN, only 26% of HR professionals surveyed believe employees feel it’s very important to prepare for a disability; the same amount thinks employees are in fact properly prepared to withstand a disabling event.

Ninety percent of Americans lack confidence that they have enough savings to cover emergencies and the long-term implications of serious illnesses, such as cancer, Alzheimer’s or heart disease, reports the National Institute for Wellness Solutions.

A new Fidelity Investments study finds that noticeably more mothers than fathers have had comprehensive conversations about savings, planning and retirement with their adult children.

Sixty-six percent of U.S. employers report a bad-fit employee has had a measurable negative impact in a new survey from CareerBuilder. France reported the lowest level of instances, with 53%; Russia was highest with 88%.

Perhaps few people are as intimately familiar with the 840-plus-page immigration bill as Rebecca Peters. The director and counsel for legislative affairs for ACIP, Peters has been following the act since its conception and, should it pass in its current form, she says it has lots of good news for employers.

However, just dealing with the current landscape (both in terms of importing and exporting wage-earners) can be challenging enough, even before reforms are taken into account.

According to this week’s 401(k) Performance Survey, approximately 5% of 401(k) plans, or 13,811 plans, stopped matching in 2010, and an additional 2% halted the employer match in 2011.

Studying a plan sponsor with 200,000 participants and a 25% annual turnover rate, BRG found that departing employees with personalized start-to-finish help from impartial counselors cut cashout rates in half and saved an estimated $6 million in costs.

To be truly global, employers must combine local best benefits practices with their global philosophy.

Americans’ confidence in their retirement savings remains at record low levels, according to a survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

2013 marks a true test of leadership for benefits professionals, particularly for employee communications.

Conflicting surveys and interviews highlight the difficulty in getting a true picture of Generation Y’s retirement readiness.

A full three-quarters of the workforce thinks their employer will educate them about changes to their health care coverage as a result of reform, but only 13% of employers say educating employees about health care reform is important to their organization.

Reinforcing other studies, Truven finds that more than two-thirds of the 6.5 million emergency department visits during the study period for those under the age of 65 were avoidable and could have saved employers and health plans millions.

In a SHRM survey, 77% of respondents currently say they use social networking for that purpose. In 2011, 56% of surveyed organizations used social networking sites to find and communicate with job applicants; back in 2008, it was 34%.

Towers Watson reports that employers contributed $45.1 billion to their pension plans last year, up from $38.9 billion in 2011, but it wasn’t enough: pension deficits jumped 17%, or $42.5 billion, to $295.2 billion at year-end 2012.

The 25,000 square-foot Associates’ Family Health Center offers not just occupational care, but full primary care services for BMW employees and their dependents, as well as some retirees.