Employee benefits

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.

Despite the ever-changing world, ERISA remains strong and steady. The average American worker is far better off because of ERISA, which has held up remarkably well over the past four decades.

New data reveals only 46% of middle-market consumers have individual life insurance, and that more than three quarters of consumers age 25-64 say they would benefit from more close guidance from financial services professionals in adding that important voluntary benefit.

Fed up over unpaid enrollment commissions, benefit advisers are suing the Nevada state exchange and its website contractor Xerox.

On the 40th anniversary of ERISA, benefits attorney Howard Shapiro contemplates the differences between this landmark piece of legislation and another, the Affordable Care Act.

The IRS has posted draft instructions for the various Affordable Care Act reporting that will be done for calendar year 2015 and while the instructions provide much needed guidance for employers and insurers, they also confirm the daunting complexity of the reporting task.