Employer Strategies

If it’s okay to charge higher premiums on employer-provided health insurance to smokers or employees who refuse to take a health-risk appraisal, then why, asks guest blogger Bruce Shutan, is it wrong for the government to help us take better care of ourselves?

Employee morale continues a slow but steady decline from 2008 levels, but the benefits enrollment season, vastly approaching, offers employers the chance to positively engage their employees, according to recent research from Unum.

As carriers ramp up to gain market share ahead of PPACA, Aetna acquires Coventary —increasing its overall share of government health plans to more than 30%, and nearly 42 million members nationwide.

A U.S. bankruptcy court judge has denied a request by American Airlines parent company to abandon collective bargaining agreements with its pilots in an effort to save more than $1 billion a year in labor and benefit costs.

While most benefits professionals responding to a recent poll have seen improvements in their benefits communication efforts in the past three years, a sizeable portion are either unsatisfied with or ambivalent about their current strategy.

Working Americans would receive a set of capped tax credits to cover their health care costs under a proposal by Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who believes excluding employer-provided coverage from federal taxes provides an unfair advantage.

While employers are loath to spend money in a tight economy, it is no longer “reasonable” for plan sponsors to avoid having specialists assisting them in dealing with their benefit plans.

Of the 14 life insurance firms monitored by Corporate Insight, Liberty Mutual and USAA were cited as having the strongest social media performances and were awarded top grades.

A nearly four-fold increase in custom strategies for target-date fund assets held by 401(k) plans is projected by 2016 compared with the 2011 asset level of $46.4 billion.

Experts who have crunched the numbers on retiree medical cost estimates that factor in Medicare premiums, prescription drugs and the occasional illness project frightening bills – even for healthy individuals.