Employee benefits

Benefit experts and thought leaders will discuss some of the most important and possibly industry-changing trends for the coming year at this year’s Workplace Benefits Renaissance in Atlantic City, Feb. 24-26.

Upwards of 200,000 people who signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and may not be legal residents of the U.S. are set to lose their insurance coverage, the government said Wednesday.

Would saving an extra $200 billion in health care costs a year sound nice? No, it’s not another ploy to get rid of the ACA … for once. Annually, between $100 billion and $289 billion is spent on hospital visits due to patients failing to adhere to their prescription medicines

Commentary: Americans must take the responsible course when it comes to health insurance coverage, says adviser David C. Smith.

401(k) plans have spun a leak, as a growing number of in-service withdrawals are hurting retirement readiness.

More employers are adding CI to their voluntary benefits package to combat rising out-of-pocket costs.

While Anthem’s recent data breach raised concerns on the security of personal data, an employee’s ability to actually understand and interpret personal health information is also an issue.

The rest of the world is following the U.S. lead in embracing the defined contribution model of retirement savings plans, with America’s employer-sponsored plans taking a huge share of global assets. And with those huge assets come huge risks.

In the next five years, when it comes to managing costs, wellness offerings and family coverage, C-level executives and benefit managers both cite four changes expected in the next five years, but executives and managers each weigh in differently on their importance.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners will investigate the security posture of health insurer Anthem following its huge hacking breach.

Employers opting to drop or forgo health care coverage for employees are still eager for ways to help their staff manage health care needs. Benefit firm FirstPerson has unveiled a unique solution to do just that.

Annuity providers are putting on a full-court press to encourage employers to give serious consideration to incorporating lifetime income solutions to their defined contribution plan participants.

Consumers cite complex language, lack of time as roadblocks to making a purchase, study finds.

Corporate spending on wellness programs is surging, but motivating employees to use them continues to be a rather expensive struggle. There are lots of reasons for this, but a really unfortunate one is bad timing.

One-on-one coaching, auto features are keys to saving for the future.

Anthem Inc., the second-biggest U.S. health insurer, said it’s going to take about 10 to 14 days to figure out who was affected by a data breach and begin notifying those people.

The most common vector of cyberattack is still poor habits by associates, says Joseph Smith, former CIO of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Not all corporate data breaches are of the spectacular variety that health insurer Anthem recently announced, involving 80 million members. But any company that offers a wellness program needs to take special precautions to ensure employee health information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

For some employers the move to a private exchange is as much about the role of benefits as an attraction and retention strategy as it is about saving money over the long term.

Broker information was not compromised as part of a cyber-attack on Anthem’s IT system and the carrier says it is working with brokers to assist and inform their clients about the breach.