Employee benefits

End-of-year reviews of retirement plan success strategies should also include a candid examination of the job a plan adviser has been doing. Here are some benchmarks to help with that process.

As the Affordable Care Act moves forward, benefits enrollment and management will increasingly be done online. While there hasn't been a major breach in the benefits world yet, the risk is very real.

In anticipation of the 2015 tax season, TurboTax is enabling imports of the 1095-A forms, one of the many new tax forms associated with the Affordable Care Act.

Consumer operated and oriented plans known as CO-OPs have given some commercial carriers a run for their money in parts of the HIX marketplace where there was little or no competition, but these entities, created under the Affordable Care Act, also have run into some of the same systemic obstacles that have dogged for-profit plans for years.

Comparing prescription drug benefits offered on the Covered California state-run exchange is expected to be easier during the 2015 open enrollment.

Commentary: Advisers provide great value to colleges and universities, a Transamerica Retirement Solutions survey shows. Brodie Wood shares four specific areas that participants say are of the most value.

There are several key areas where an employer can experience savings from a wellness program, says Retrofit's Jeff Hyman. The CEO shares several ideas on how to get started, including which data sets are most worth measuring.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has released highly anticipated draft regulations expected to impact the makeup of health plan provider networks on a state and federal level, including on the ACA exchanges.

Whether plan sponsors like it or not, employees’ expectations of the health insurance purchasing process are being shaped by influences outside of their control.

Employers are taking a more engaging and firm approach to making sure employees take retirement saving seriously, making use of automatic enrollment and escalation, as well as personalized tools. And both employers and retirement plan providers are noting changes in the savings attitudes of employees.

Commentary: There are several key areas where an employer can experience savings from a wellness program, says Retrofit's Jeff Hyman. The CEO shares several ideas on how to get started, including which data sets are most worth measuring.

Employers looking to amplify their employees’ retirement prospects might look to the growing individual retirement account field, as involvement in employer-sponsored retirement plans remains largely unchanged.

In exclusive interviews, Mercer’s Julio Portalatin and the heads of several other top brokerages — Gallagher, Lockton, Higginbotham, Willis and Pacific Resources —speak with EBA about their strategies for sustained development and staying ahead of the competition.

The IRS has issued a notice, regulations and other guidance related to the ACA, including information on getting a hardship exemption from the individual mandate for health insurance coverage.

Commentary: Reference-based pricing is slowly catching on with self-insured companies, says AmWINS Group Benefits’ Sam Fleet.

With mental illness and substance abuse costing employers an estimated $100 billion annually in indirect costs alone, benefit decision-makers are seeing value in promoting employee assistance programs as a means to improve their workforce’s mental well-being.

Towers Watson has spent nearly a billion dollars of its own capital to build out its private exchange offering, OneExchange, through acquisitions. Jim Foreman, Towers Watson’s director of exchange solutions, shares how voluntary continues to grow in a private HIX marketplace and why more and more employers are expressing interest in the offerings.

HHS proposes making some significant changes to the ACA in 2016, including controversial new requirements for brokers and agents that some say put them at an unfair disadvantage.

Commentary: What makes employers slow to adopt a defined contribution strategy? There are many reasons, says bswift’s Brianna Petro.

With its sights set on maintaining lifetime retirement income for the American workforce, a new final rule from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation hopes to limit any obstacles participants face when rolling over their 401(k) money into traditional pension plans.