Employee benefits

Record stock prices and steadily increasing home values have made U.S. households wealthier as the economic expansion lumbered on.

Commentary: It’s time to start thinking outside the box and considering life insurance and fixed indexed annuities as alternative investments or sub investment classes within fixed income for retirement plans.

In a last-minute push before a special enrollment begins Sunday, officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Treasury Department Friday wanted to remind consumers to sign up for coverage and avoid noted fees seen in this year’s tax season.

Commentary: Getting started on better engagement can be a daunting task. Columnist Wendy Keneipp shares three areas to focus on in order to begin creating stronger connections with your employees.

Proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act’s summary of benefits and coverage and uniform glossary are coming under fire from business groups who say the implementation time frame does not give them enough time to comply with the new requirements.

While the value of 401(k) retirement savings accounts and IRAs hit a record high of $11.3 trillion at the end of 2013, the average American household isn't sharing in that wealth.

Everyone knows healthier employees are more productive employees, and focusing on wellness can help achieve that goal. But there are two things vital to us all missing from the equation: vision and hearing.

Year two under the ACA saw improved user experience, more choices for consumers and millions of Americans qualified for subsidies, Kevin Counihan says.

The patchwork of marriage laws across the country imposes an administrative and financial burden on employers, says a recent amicus brief filed on behalf of large employers in an upcoming Supreme Court case.

Fidelity Investments has taken over the retirement plans of HanesBrands, which sells apparel under the brands Hanes, Champion, Bali, Playtex and Maidenform.

Commentary: Three common employer concerns about exchanges and how to address them.

After nearly 50 years, the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries and its affiliates have rebranded under a new name, the American Retirement Association.

Commentary: Distant financial needs are rarely addressed by workers on their own, which is why employers should enhance retirement education to make up the deficit.

Commentary: Agency growth is completely dependent on producer pipelines. Yet, we typically see producers struggling with one of two situations: either they have empty pipelines or ones filled with the wrong opportunities.

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?