Benefits Think

Most, if not all, recent analyses of wellness programs have had a seemingly myopic focus on the impact of wellness on health care costs to the exclusion of these programs' effects on an organization's business and financial outcomes.

Blogger Rob Lieblein points out that about 70% of insurance agencies don’t have a succession plan and says that it’s not as easy and fast a process as most brokers think.

Employers continue to see a rise in health insurance costs. Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $16,351 in 2013, up 4% from last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2013 Employer Health Benefits Survey. So how can employers work to control these costs? A key success factor in reducing health insurance costs is the leadership’s commitment to this strategy. Can you find top-down leadership commitment to a long-term program…

To help make the most of open enrollment season and position yourself as a trusted resource for your roster of HR managers, The Standard's John West shares a few focus areas to help strengthen your clients’ overall benefits health.

401(k) plans may not be the perfect retirement plan vehicle but they do have a number of important attributes that most of us probably take for granted.

Leaders overseeing the launch of the federal health care exchange understood the importance of technology. But they did not understand how to build technology. And that lack of intuitive understanding and respect for the nature of how technology is built led to decisions that doomed the project's launch.

Smart investments in disease prevention, and keeping employees healthy in the first place, will pay off. This means moving beyond just worksite wellness to invest in building health outside office walls and in the community.

The present status of the retirement system does not bode well for the retirement system, or for baby boomers who have or will be reaching retirement age from 2012 to 2030.

Used to assess and evaluate changes in employee health, biometric health screenings are a crucial component of a comprehensive worksite health program. As a result, biometric health screenings are increasing in popularity and are being implemented by more and more employers.

2014 will see fast-paced action and unforeseen market surprises, writes guest blogger Lindsay Resnick. With competitive rivalry at all-time high, keep a close watch on the trends impacting your business and take a proactive approach to managing change.