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Nationwide Better Health, part of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, closed its doors Sept. 1 after five years in the wellness and productivity business. The company announced on May 25 that Nationwide would sell its productivity services to Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc. and wind down disease management and wellness programs.

The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program - created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to help employers offset the costs of maintaining early retiree health benefits - may get another $5 billion worth of funds thanks to a bill introduced in the Senate this spring. However, some industry insiders don't expect the bill to gain much traction.

After the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon stood burning and Flight 93 left a gaping hole in the Pennsylvania countryside on Sept. 11, 2001, Americans depended on human contact to revive our nation's spirit. Many companies consoled employees and their family members with grief counselors, supported them when financial uncertainty arose and - when there was nothing else they could do - just listened to their fears and worries. As our nation marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, EBN examines the success of employee assistance programs, which gained even greater acceptance and utilization after the terrorist attacks. Employers and experts close to the tragedy share how EAPs helped employees in the immediate aftermath and continue to aid them today in a shaky economic environment.

Prior to joining ValuMarket - a family-owned chain of grocery stores in Louisville, Ky. - Amy Bisig had no experience in wellness programming. She clearly made a great impression on CEO Greg Newman, who hired her anyway to be the company's corporate wellness director.

When I ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up, David Kasiarz, senior vice president of global compensation and benefits at American Express, replies without hesitation, "a pediatrician."

At Draper Laboratory, Allen Hymovitz, the senior manager of benefits and quality of life, takes both facets of his title seriously. Retirement is not just about financial planning, he says. It's about planning for an extended vacation.

In some organizations, the complex, painstaking and costly business of producing key benefit documents like summary plan descriptions is accepted merely as a legally necessary but thankless task. You won't find that attitude anywhere in the vicinity of Michael Calhoun, director of benefit plan governance for AT&T and winner of this year's EBN Benny Award in the Judges' Choice category.

OhioHealth's manager of benefits administration integrated all of OhioHealth's wellness initiatives into one program, branding the new program OhioHealthy, in 2006. The following year, she consolidated OhioHealth's three health plans into one. Meddock's accomplishments in these initiatives has earned her EBN's 2011 Benny Award for Benefits Leadership in Health Care.

With economic indicators showing the nation clearly is a damsel in distress, employers might be looking for a good cowboy to ride in to the rescue. Luckily, many of you have come to the right place.

I have done a lot of 401(k) plan participant education sessions over the years. As a result, I may know your 401(k) plan participants better than you do (without ever having met them!). That's because I've found that most 401(k) retirement plans have four participant investor groups. These groups are: core-funds investors, index-funds investors, specialty-funds investors and target-date funds investors.