Employer Strategies

Healthcare coverage is a significant piece of your employees’ overall financial package. If your plan doesn’t appropriately meet their needs, it can be a source of stress for them throughout the year.

Under new final regulations, which take effect Jan. 1, 2016, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation substantially reduced the reporting requirements for pension plan administrators, sponsors and contributing employers.

Commentary: An employer’s argument that their classification of a 1099 employee should be respected because it’s how the employee is classified will go over like a lead balloon. The risk of misclassification under the ACA could be significant, says lawyer Peter Marathas.

Commentary: There are a lot of misconceptions about retirement plans that may keep employees from enrolling. Chad Parks shares are some ways to help businesses navigate these often jargon-heavy waters.

Commentary: What we can do to support them, make them feel more welcome in our company culture and help strengthen our own company in the process.

Commentary: This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., which has vital implications for employee benefit plans — and for future attempts to impose state-specific regimes to gather health data from those plans.

Commentary: Adviser David C. Smith says he’s seen “a handful of imaginative approaches that all fail to satisfy the IRS’s prohibition” on standalone Health Reimbursement Arrangements.

Care must be taken to coordinate your company’s efforts to review and revise employment terms. Here are a few common problem areas to which HR and benefit managers should pay particular attention.

Commentary: Auto-enrollment, codified in law by the Pension Protection Act of 2006, was drafted with the best of intentions — to increase Americans’ retirement savings — but it has had the unintended consequence of impairing plan effectiveness.

Commentary: The most important element in personal investing, including 401(k) investing, is an investor's understanding of his/her risk tolerance. Virtually all negative investor outcomes spring from a lack of understanding an employee has about his/her ability to bear risk.