Benefits Think

On the heels of last week's release of Department of Labor model notices to guide employers in explaining the federal COBRA subsidy for laid-off workers, EBN and sister publication Employee Benefit Adviser will moderate an informational web seminar tomorrow, March 25, offering more information about the...

This month, Contributing Editor and EBN legal eagle Frank Palmieri helps you find the devil in the details of the federal suspension of the required minimum distribution provision in the Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act. WRERA suspends for 2009 IRS rules that compelled retirees age 70 1/2 and...

It's no secret, the world's gone a-Twitter. Whether being used to communicate with friends, colleagues or like-minded strangers, the social networking site Twitter experienced 1,382% growth between February 2008 and February 2009.

Tell the truth - which training session would you rather go through: Spending two hours watching PowerPoint slides go by or playing a video game? The benefits and communications teams at Assurant Employee Benefits, a Kansas City-based benefits carrier, thought employees would be more engaged by the...

A workplace without walls? Encouraging socializing among coworkers? The folks at Gensler, a design, planning and strategic consulting firm, are big proponents of both. Read up on why in a two-part series in the February and March issues of EBN.

The news is going from bad to worse on target-date funds. Performance is flagging, and the latest from EBN's sister publication Money Management Executive: Allstate has decided to cancel its seven ClearTarget Retirement Funds after only 10 months, saying that it has decided to exit the target-date mutual...

Employees are getting hit with a bunch of health care letters these days: HSAs, HRA, CDHPs. And before you toss more at them, VBBD (value-based benefits design), experts tell EBN you need to get into their minds to change workers' attitudes toward health care quality and cost.

Amid rising health care costs and other economic worries, a majority of large U.S. employers remain confident they will continue to offer health care benefits to workers 10 years from now. However, the level of confidence has slipped from last year due to economic concerns and uncertainty over the implications...

As financial and litigation fears both have employers on edge, an EBN report this month offers employers three letters to help protect themselves when making benefits changes/reductions: S, P, D.

When President Obama told attendees at this month's White House forum on health care reform that there were "no sacred cows," and "all options are on the table," few suspected he meant taxing health care benefits, as he campaigned hard last year against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for proposing just that....