Employee benefits

Commentary: Open enrollment time means employer clients will be reviewing fee disclosures. Columnist John Ludwig discusses several steps plan sponsors should take when reviewing the disclosures for accuracy and to determine if fees are fair and reasonable.

Since joining the NFL Players Association 25 years ago, Dana Hammonds has launched a successful financial education program and constantly fine-tuned educational topics and outreach to meet players’ needs. She is the recipient of EBN’s 2014 Benny Award for Leadership in Retirement Planning.

Many studies indicate that workers should save at least 12% to 15% of their income each year. It is likely that most 401(k) plan participants are not saving anything near this amount.

As private exchange providers introduce voluntary benefit offerings, how will broker commissions be affected?

Several factors, including the economy and technological advances, are contributing to a slowdown in the health care cost growth rate in the U.S., studies show.

As the gap widens on whether e-cigarettes are part of the solution or still part of the greater problem of employee smoking cessation, their popularity is still on the rise. Experts from the health management group HealthFitness have provided some additional tips for employers taking on the challenge of creating e-cigarette policies in the workplace.

EBN’s annual i-COMM Awards recognize the best in internal communication of benefits, and are awarded in four categories: Best Overall Communications Campaign, Best Print or Online Employee Newsletter, Best Employee Intranet or Portal and Best Use of Social Media. In this four-part series, we highlight this year’s winners, starting with AECOM, i-COMM winner for Best Overall Communications Campaign.

Diana Andersen’s efforts to educate employees made the Affordable Care Act a ‘nonevent’ for Zions Bancorporation. Andersen is EBN’s 2014 Benny Award winner for Benefits Leadership in Health Care.

While online training and development courses may have a bad rap for being mundane, new strides are being taken to create more innovative and engaging programs with a focus on human achievement.

CMS says small employers and their benefit advisers in select states will have early access to the ACA’s Small Business Health Options Program to test-drive the system, but not all are interested.

Some industry sectors are bucking the trend from defined benefit pension plans to defined contribution plans, with more than half of companies in the insurance and utility sectors still offering DB and DC retirement plans to new salaried employees.

MetLife was deemed systemically important by a panel of regulators, a decision that would subject the biggest U.S. life insurer to stricter Federal Reserve oversight.

Commentary: Under the ACA, clinical trials offer an expanding frontier for plan sponsors and insurers, says Symetra’s Marien Diaz.

The IRS has released long-awaited draft instructions for the forms employers will use to comply with the ACA’s employer mandate, giving benefit advisers and their clients a glimpse of the work ahead for 2015 and how to begin preparing now.

Employees aren’t shouting from the roof over how great their employer-sponsored benefits are. In fact, satisfaction is sitting at some of the lowest levels since 2008, according to new data released from Unum.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington will rehear a recent court decision that found the ACA's premium subsidies invalid in more than two dozen states due to the law’s specific language. A rehearing may reduce the chances of a new Supreme Court showdown over a central element of the health reform law.

Commentary: Companies across America are scrambling to discover the secret formula for engaging the millennial generation with their benefits. Blogger Matt Burns unveils a few tips on how benefit advisers can help.

Court rules verbal COBRA notice is sufficient, but benefit advisers caution employers to follow-up with written notice, as well.

Most Americans value life insurance as a means to financial wellbeing. Life insurance month reminds brokers to make that connection.

CVS Caremark Corp. halted sales of tobacco products almost a month ahead of schedule, started a smoking-cessation campaign, and changed its name to position itself as an advocate of better health.