Employer Strategies

Three months after a leading private equity firm sought to acquire all of Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc.’s common stock for $60 per share in cash, another suitor has come calling for the provider of legal services through the worksite and individual markets to more than 1.5 million families across North America.

Although life insurance made modest gains in the third quarter of 2010 when gross written premiums were up 6% from the same period a year earlier, an Aite Group report notes that premiums fell to historic lows in 2009 when the product was considered an unnecessary discretionary purchase.

Two recent reports on disability issues conclude that fewer working Americans filed such claims during the height of the economic downturn and that there’s a serious misunderstanding about disability and the value of income-protection planning.

Days after delivering what he called a “little speech” (also known as the State of the Union address), President Obama vehemently defended the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, rallying the audience of a Families USA conference in Washington, D.C., that “we are moving forward.”

Guardian Life will withdraw its medical insurance product line in all states, and will wind down its existing business over the next two years.

In Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP., the Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling determined that an employee who does not directly engage in protected activity can still assert a claim for retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act as a victim who falls within the “zone of interests” of protection afforded by the statute.

The reverberations from last year’s seismic legislative tilts will be keenly felt by insurers in the coming year. A new report by Boston-based Aite Group finds reaction to health care reform and financial services reform among five trends that will shape each sector respectively.

To take advantage of the economic upswing, employers will have to become smarter about strategies on talent management and succession planning, according to a survey by Towers Watson.

Of the 568 short-term disability, accident and critical-illness claimants with voluntary policies from Unum responding to an independent customer-satisfaction survey, 90% said they would recommend the carrier to their co-workers.

Dearborn National’s Worksite and Individual Solutions division hopes to reach new heights with Mountain Vista, a new term life plan aimed at working-class Americans with premiums projected to be level for 10, 20 or 30 years.