Employee benefits

The life insurance and annuities market continues to grow, but advisers hoping to capitalize on that will first need to meet the challenges of a diversifying U.S. population.

While certain health and wellness campaigns lend themselves to gender-specific messaging – mammograms or prostate cancer, for example – positioning health and benefits communication to male and female employees differently isn’t commonplace.

Even though more than one-in-four Americans have received treatment or therapy from a mental health professional, few people know that health insurers are required to provide coverage for mental health, behavioral health and substance-use disorders that is comparable to coverage for physical health.

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry is sounding the alarm that many children aren’t getting the dental care they need — even though the ACA includes pediatric dental care on its essential health benefits roster for small-group plans.

Individuals could pay more than twice as much for prescription drugs with certain exchange plans, as employers that provide health coverage gain another asset to leverage.

Mirroring a recent HHS initiative, some state-run marketplaces such as Covered California have extended a special enrollment period for COBRA-eligible individuals, allowing them to enroll in a marketplace exchange plan through July.

Recently Senator Marco Rubio, a 2016 Republican presidential hopeful, shared his thoughts on reforming America's retirement system. Blogger Robert C. Lawton rates Rubio's proposals on a scale of one to five.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is calling for a complete revamp of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation board of directors to include plan sponsors from company and employers affected by the federal agency’s supervision.

Everyone understands that advertising helps sell products and that was the top way to sell health plans through the public exchanges. But looking back on the first open enrollment, which advertising techniques worked and what lessons were learned to raise the number of enrollees further for 2015?

While health care costs are growing more slowly than in years past, the increases are unsustainable over the long-term, say those in the industry.

While small-business employers are just as keen on providing the same benefits as their big-business counterparts, a recent study says employers can look at offering competitive voluntary benefits as a way to entice employees and boost employee retention.

Supplemental benefit SurgeryPlus is a new product offering for advisers, especially those who work with self-funded clients.

One recent court case suggests your employer clients should consider including disclaimers in benefit notices to protect against changes in retirement plan payouts.

Retirement plan administrators routinely receive requests from employees to accept rollover contributions. When processing these requests, plan administrators must be mindful of IRS guidelines.

A handful of letters from trade groups and the Chamber of Commerce reject as “premature and imprudent” the DOL’s proposal to require retirement plan service providers supply guides to fee disclosures.

A new proposal to raise Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation premiums to the tune of $25 billion over the next decade for companies that offer defined benefit pension plans is being contested. Not surprisingly, many in charge of administering their company’s pension benefits see the increase as crippling to their industry and the economy.

The breakdown of states running their own health insurance exchanges versus those using the federally facilitated marketplace will change in due time – but exactly how it will change is still up in the air, said a speaker at Wednesday’s National Health Insurance Exchange Summit, held in Washington, D.C.

The concept of limiting coverage of spouses through the implementation of a surcharge or waiver program has been talked about for years. This is a microcosm of the employee benefits environment where employers are considering every possible cost-control strategy.

Analytics and the use of big data by corporate America are increasingly growing as companies look to make better business decisions. Client, internal information and databases collected over long periods of time are helping companies better understand their business and where to spend their money. The same is true for public retirement systems.

Flexibility, tax benefits and the overall attractiveness of Roth 401(k) plans are encouraging more employers to offer them.