Employee benefits

Preparing Americans for retirement is at the forefront of priorities for lawmakers and industry, as putting off saving for retirement for even a few years will woefully shortchange employees in their golden years.

Commentary: Individuals and small businesses in NY can't get quality health coverage, and New Yorkers should exercise caution when considering moving to a single-payer system.

Delays, limited awareness, competition and insufficient subsidies among problems outlined in a Government Accountability Office report on state and federal small group exchanges. CMS says brokers will play a key role in any future growth.

The pro-Affordable Care Act national non-profit group Enroll America is expanding its outreach staff and launching new technology-driven tools in order to reach the still uninsured and enroll them in health insurance during open enrollment, which starts Saturday.

As retirement confidence among employees remains low, small business owners and their workforces may even be less prepared due to the scarcity of formal retirement education and established retirement savings plans to help this demographic.

Employee Benefit Adviser, in partnership with business intelligence data analytics firm miEdge, introduces the first listing of top employee benefit firms in the country to be ranked exclusively on health and welfare revenue. Revealed in descending order, the listing is based on Form 5500 reporting data as of Nov. 7, 2014.

The Supreme Court did not appear overly supportive of the so-called Yard-Man presumption during arguments this week in M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett.

The funded status of some multiemployer pension plans has not seen any drastic improvements since the great recession. But now, as proposals lurk in Congress to eliminate pension liabilities and improve the overall insolvency of these plans, there may be changes on the horizon.

Depression in the workplace can affect anyone and it takes an emotional toll on those affected, and can also have a significant financial toll on employers. A new program developed by the American Psychiatric Foundation and Employers Health Coalition aims to provide both employers and employees with the tools needed to help combat depression in the workplace.

If employers only look at wellness from a 9-to-5 point of view, they are missing valuable opportunities to engage employees. Wellness doesn’t end at 5 p.m., said one expert at the National Business Coalition on Health’s annual conference.

Knowing all sides of a client’s benefits plan helps both retirement and health benefit consultants make better recommendations.

Commentary: The more companies we come in contact with, the more we hear this statement and the more we realize how much employers are relying on their broker, says Beverly Beattie.

There are many Affordable Care Act requirements that employer clients must keep track of, and a benefit administration system can be the answer.

The nation’s largest corporate defined benefit pension plans continue to experience woes as their collective funding statuses dwindle due to unsavory interest rates.

Advisers need to know what employees want, what the competition is doing and be current on tax law before setting up an executive benefit plan.

Potential Healthcare.gov customers can peek at 2015 prices for the program’s health plans today after the government said it would release a “window-shopping” feature overnight.

Acquired by Towers Watson in November 2013, private exchange provider Liazon is navigating a unique space. It is both owned by a consultancy and used by that firm’s competitors. Alan Cohen, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Liazon, discusses how all brokers fit into the exchange equation and what, in his view, makes an exchange, an exchange.

Adding innovative benefits to a health plan takes money, research and can help attract quality employees, but may also lead to problems if not properly thought out.

The Supreme Court is set to decide the question of whether plan sponsors bound by a collective bargaining agreement have to provide medical benefits for the duration of a retiree’s lifetime, even after the collective bargaining agreement expires.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a challenge to the tax subsidies allowed under the Affordable Care Act, but legal experts predict any high court ruling will have little effect on the law or employers.