Employer Strategies

The annual Milliman Medical Index (MMI) contains some grim tidings for health insurers and others concerned by the rising cost of health care, as for the fourth straight year, costs rose by at least 7%.

AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company has introduced a structured investment option for its EQUI-VEST® series of variable deferred annuities available to employer-sponsored retirement savings plans.

The future of the investment advisory industry depends on reducing the cost of doing business, said Mark Casady, Chairman and CEO of LPL Financial, in the opening keynote at the Money Management Institute’s 2011 annual convention, held last week in Boston.

Employers seem to be especially challenged by the duty to accommodate religious beliefs, and the EEOC appears to be particularly interested in pursuing enforcement of the accommodation requirement.

Ternian Insurance Group has introduced HealthBasic, a limited medical plan for small employers with as few as five lives. The plan features different levels of coverage for different classes of employees: a mid-level plan for owners and two affordable limited medical plans for salaried and hourly employees.

A coalition of 27 health, aging, labor and consumer organizations has released a report, the "Consumer Platform for Health IT," which they call a vision for a patient-centered health care system.

Several group benefits providers, including Sun Life Financial, Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Cigna, have won plain language awards from the Center for Plain Language.

Almost everyone in Massachusetts has health insurance under a state mandate, but many doctors do not accept the subsidized insurance programs available to low-income residents, a new study shows.

A pension expert panned federal lawmakers’ efforts to increase oversight of state and local governments’ public pension plans.

A Rhode Island state court has upheld a statute under which insurance companies that want to wind up their operations can buy policies back from policyholders.