Client strategies

Understanding ACA compliance is critical, but it mustn’t come at the expense of fundamental employee education.

Ensuring clients understand ACA compliance is critical, but doing so at the expense of fundamental education is negligent.

Bring many of the industry’ leading minds together with brokers and advisers from across the country who are eager to learn and share insights on the latest market trends and best practices, and you’ve got some of the year’s most thought-provoking conversations. For those who missed out, here are the highlights from EBA’s 2015 conferences.

Commentary: Without building a better plan, continued participation will wane and the program as a whole will fall short of employer health initiatives, says adviser Tim Olson, who shares five steps that will lead employer clients to an improved plan.

Commentary: Executives are starting to acknowledge that engagement alone won’t drive long-term results.

Commentary: It’s important for employees to have someone to help support them during this time. Your clients are in the perfect position to offer that type of assistance.

Teams of benefit experts debated each other on which type of plan is the future of employer-paid health care during a discussion Tuesday at EBA’s Workplace Benefits Summit in Orlando.

Employers more than ever are seeking innovative solutions for health care cost containment from their benefit advisers, and one industry expert says emerging strategies to help brokers thrive in the coming decade should include voluntary benefit sales and plan integration.

The House has agreed to pass legislation that makes possible a repeal of the ACA’s controversial expansion of the definition of a small employer — a bill hailed by the benefits industry for protecting the small and mid-size businesses they feel the expansion threatens to harm.

Notable gap exists between what employers are demanding and what brokers are supplying