Benefits Think

From active trading to company matches, here are some common misconceptions — and the reality — your employees may have about their 401(k) plans.

The number of people who died in hospitals as a result of medical mistakes is approaching half a million, according to Patient Safety America. Medical mistakes not only cost lives and misery but billions of dollars in extra costs, most of which is paid by employers.

A recent report that the largest mutual fund in the world is now a stock fund, rather than an intermediate-term bond fund, could signal the great rotation — once just a theory — is underway.

Walgreen Co. become the latest large employer to make significant changes to its employee health plan when it announced that it will move approximately 160,000 of its employees onto a private health insurance exchange, starting in 2014. The strategy is starting to look like a trend: Over the last several months, IBM, Time Warner, Sears Holdings and Darden Restaurants have all made similar announcements.

For HR professionals, mid-year nondiscrimination testing needs to be at the top of that list. Waiting to test until the completion of the year can have severe negative consequences.

We’re living in the age of big data, so why has so little changed in how we make our health insurance decisions, asks Liazon co-founder Alan Cohen. The private exchange entrepreneur makes the case why benefits should meet technology.

Even if their employees don't use the exchanges, their functioning depends pretty heavily on some critical interactions among exchanges, employers, and their employees.

Since the institution of 401(k) plans more than 30 years ago, 401(k) providers have escalated the number of plan features to stay competitive within the marketplace. But, in order to be successful today, selling features alone won’t cut it, writes blogger Jerry Kalish.

Employers and HR professionals will have to come to terms with the most common (but hopefully not absolutely systemic) reality for employees: rates will, in some cases, go up. That’s a simple fact of life, and you can blame the ACA all you want, but the truth is that health care rates were likely to inch marginally anyhow.

Reasonable cost, high participation rates and a broad investment fund line-up contribute to the success of a 401(k) plan but other factors are important too.