Compliance

Starting April 1, New York City’s newly minted paid sick leave law – mandating coverage for all workers at businesses with five or more employees – will take effect. Expectations by city government officials highlight that paid sick leave will now be secured for 500,000 or more New Yorkers.

Being a retirement plan fiduciary carries a heavy weight and lots of responsibility. Breaches of such responsibilities can result in both civil and criminal action, though the latter is rare and usually the result of egregious behavior. Fortunately, retirement plan sponsors have a growing menu of options to help them manage their fiduciary obligations and offset some of their legal liabilities.

Under the Department of Health and Human Services’ final rule issued March 5 on the reinsurance fee imposed under the Affordable Care Act, some employers may be exempt in 2015 or 2016. Is your client exempt?

Rising health care costs are driving employers to audit their covered dependents to eliminate working spouses.

The Department of Labor requested public comments this week on a proposal to amend its 408(b)(2) fee disclosure regulations to require service providers to provide plan sponsors with a guide for navigating fee disclosure documents.

Insurance companies will urge U.S. lawmakers today to stop the Federal Reserve from imposing bank-like capital standards on their industry.

A panel including a security specialist and FTC privacy staffer talked Monday at an American Payroll Association meeting about common mistakes employers make with their employees’ personal data and what the right make-up of a privacy team at a company should look like.

Commentary: Game on at the DOL means game on for employers. Are your employers prepared for a DOL audit? Are you prepared to advise them on what an audit involves and the fines for non-compliance?

Whether being subject to an involuntary EBSA Audit, or undertaking a voluntary correction program, there are certain things a plan sponsor should be looking for (and looking out for) if they are going to have the EBSA nosing around their plans. The EBSA recently held an online seminar about things to anticipate in an EBSA investigation and here are some things that are important to remember. …

With the Affordable Care Act looming large, employers turn to benefit outsourcing to keep their plans compliant.

An organization that could impact the work lives of agents and brokers who are licensed in multiple states was supposed to be included in the flood insurance bill that passed the U.S. House Tuesday evening, but the language for it was left out. What happened, and are brokers invested in this idea anyway?

Much has been made about how the exchanges are playing in Peoria, but what about Portugal, Poland or Peru?

While outsourcing is a dirty word for many U.S. workers, most organizations that outsource benefits administration do so not to reduce HR head count, but rather to achieve legal compliance, reduce burdens on internal staff, gain efficiencies and gain access self-service technology.

Employers are begging for information on compliance with the Affordable Care Act, and as their benefit adviser you can and should offer them guidance — or risk losing them to an adviser who will. Attorney Peter Marathas of Proskauer Rose LLP has outlined four ACA issues you should already be discussing with your clients.

Lawmakers in Maryland and Wisconsin are working to make retirement plans more readily available to private sector employees. Their efforts follow recently enacted California legislation that requires employers to contribute 3% of a worker’s salary to a retirement account.

Increasing the U.S. minimum wage may lift some workers out of poverty while leading to as many as 1 million job losses, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.

If the last few years were an age of reform, then we’ve definitely entered a new era — a time of compliance.

Republicans were trying to dismantle the ACA’s risk corridor premium stabilization program as recently as this week but several factors, possibly including the insurance industry itself, took them off course.

This week started out with the much anticipated employer responsibility ruling and first shocked us with the additional employer mandate delay. But there’s much more to the ruling that advisers and plan sponsors need to be aware of in the coming months.

Commentary: There are murky new ACA liabilities for your benefit agency. Craig Davidson shares how these potential liabilities lie with insurance protection coverage that you may need.