Employee benefits

A bipartisan legislative proposal to spur greater sponsorship of retirement plans by smaller employers and higher deferral levels by plan participants has been proposed once again in Washington.

An atypical market culture has left benefit firms vulnerable to the destructive powers of inertia, says Joe Markland, and advisers must change their mindset to survive.

President Barack Obama’s $3.99 trillion fiscal 2016 budget proposal echoes and expands on much of what he presented during his State of the Union address last month, from expanding sick leave to enhancing training and providing some free access to community colleges.

The introduction of new legislation to repeal the ACA’s employer mandate seeks to relieve employers of health care reform requirements Republicans say threaten job creation and growth. While many in the benefits industry applaud an effort widely considered futile, the employer mandate is only one of several ACA concerns employers say they have prioritized.

If you are responsible for overseeing your company's retirement plan, then you know that a key measurement of success is employee participation rates. Of course your plan's participation helps employees save as much as they can for retirement, but it also ties directly to passing nondiscrimination tests.

Both groups place a high importance on life insurance and are most receptive to it, LIMRA finds.

As calls for the EEOC to issue guidance on wellness programs continue, employees are on board with their employers’ involvement in health and wellness programs.

The University of Washington danced its way into the Guinness Book of World Records this week, also marking a year since the inception of the university’s revolutionary employee engagement program.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission came under fire during a U.S. Senate committee hearing on employer-sponsored wellness programs Thursday, with one witness calling on Congress to end the “sorry state of affairs."

The high court’s unanimous ruling affirms contract law principles.

Stomach, headache claims rise significantly following the Super Bowl, study shows.

Workers closing in on traditional retirement age may have to recompute the amount of money they’ll need to live comfortably, and significantly up their contributions to any workplace-sponsored retirement plan during their final working years.

In an EBA exclusive, the leader of Hawaii’s public health care exchange pinpoints failures and shares why it’s a business imperative that no one be left out of the system.

As many as 6 million U.S. taxpayers will have to pay a penalty of as much as 1 percent of income because they went without health insurance in part or all of 2014, the Treasury Department said.

The Affordable Care Act has a lot of work to do to get Americans more employer-based health coverage, particularly those working for small companies.

Department of Labor audits of employee benefit plans are on the rise and experts agree benefit advisers should be preparing their employer clients now for that impending knock on the door.

President Barack Obama is dropping his proposal to tax the earnings on college savings accounts, responding to criticism of an idea the White House announced 10 days ago.

Service awards should be an added benefit of a highly engaging and strategic workforce recognition program. They need to be personal, desirable and offered frequently.

As the first blizzard of 2015 blanketed the northeast in wind and snow this week, many employees were still plugged in and “made it to work” like it was any other day.

Brokers cite rate increases, increased complexity and poor plan quality as top concerns with the health care law.