Employer Strategies

The broker-carrier relationship, especially one as long-lasting as Bob and William Taylor’s with Florida Blue and Darnell Smith, is dynamic and continuously evolving. EBA examines what makes this necessary partnership tick and introduces the top large-group insurance carriers in the country.

The 6th Circuit recently reversed Rochow v. Life Ins. Co. of N. America in an en banc opinion. The new decision determined that unless there is a showing that that the remedy for denial of benefits under 502(a)(1)(B) is inadequate to make plaintiff whole, equitable relief under Section 502(a)(3) is unavailable.

More employers are making disability income benefits available to employees, at the same time that the proportion of those employees who have access to disability income DI coverage choosing to take advantage of it is edging downward.

Illinois’s remedy for the state’s worst-in- the-nation $111 billion pension-funding shortfall was disliked by lawmakers who voted for it, the new governor who inherited it and public employee unions who sued to void it.

Faced with a growing patchwork of locally mandated minimum paid sick day benefits, a group of employers in New Jersey is challenging localities’ actions as not only inconsistent with New Jersey laws and the state’s constitution, but the U.S. Constitution as well.

One key consumer-operated and oriented plan based in the Midwest recently lost the battle for hearts, minds and pocketbooks along the highly competitive landscape of an emerging online marketplace when it was forced to liquidate, but does that spell doom for other CO-OPs?

For companies transitioning to a consumer-directed health plan, the most important point to keep in mind is that the health plan a business adopts may not be as critical as how the business handles the transition to the plan.

Consumers Union, the owner of Consumer Reports, agreed to eliminate the March 15 deadline for approval of an employment contract that includes an adjustable pension plan employees had bargained for in 2013.

The Affordable Care Act does not appear to have seriously eroded employees’ appetite for and confidence in receiving health benefits from their employer.

Is the end of employer-provided health insurance near? The heads of Zane Benefits say it is and claim a paradigm shift is moving the benefits industry toward defined contribution employer-funded health care, instead.