Employee benefits

Making sure payroll and benefits enrollment are up to par was not a concern back in 1922 when Diamond Parking Service was first established in Seattle, Wash. Diamond Parking turned to well-known industry source known for its ability to automate data processing.

The Department of Labor has proposed a rule requiring pension plan service providers to offer a guide to help employers navigate disclosures about fees and potential conflicts of interest. Who would it affect and why?

For retirement plan advisers – and the plan administrator community – it remains more than a bit problematic to cope with the prospect of a new threshold of responsibility for the financial decisions of plan participants. Or, having their hands tied and only being able to offer extremely financial guidance, as the case may be.

Even as the April 15 tax deadline looms for individual retirement account contributions, American adults still spend more time selecting a restaurant for a special occasion than they allocate to planning their IRA’s important investments.

Northwestern University football players were given the right to form college sports’ first labor union in a ruling that could seismically change the $16 billion business of top-level university athletics.

Would the millions of employees who clearly need more life insurance as a voluntary benefit be better served by a new private insurance exchange, not unlike the new system for health care benefits?

The agency tasked with ACA execution would not say Wednesday whether they had a process to verify when consumers began their insurance applications on the exchanges. This comes a day after the group said there may be more time for certain individuals to finish enrolling after a March 31 deadline.

Americans are becoming less divided about the Affordable Care Act, as the gap between favorable and unfavorable views of the law has narrowed among both the general public and the uninsured, a new survey finds.

Although U.S. workers on a whole are more satisfied with their current financial situation than in years past, most (58%) remain concerned about financial stability in retirement and say they plan to continue working until age 70 or later, a new Towers Watson survey shows.

A new report card tracking health care price transparency finds that 45 states failed to offer essential information to consumers shopping in the U.S. health system, a significant step back since easier-to-understand public health solutions were to have become the norm in this post-Affordable Care Act world.

Commentary: The deadline for discrimination testing has come and gone. If your clients are like many employers, they didn’t do so well.

Voluntary benefit sales are enjoying rapid growth as employers prepare for the impact of the Affordable Care Act by revamping their medical plan designs to include more products such as accident and critical illness benefits.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday debated whether companies can assert religious rights, hearing arguments in an ideological clash over the Affordable Care Act and rules that promote contraceptive coverage.

A community with high well-being is one where citizens and employees are satisfied with their lifestyle and overall health. In this year’s Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, top honors go to Provo-Orem, Utah.

Access to prescription drugs is more challenging for consumers buying insurance through the exchanges than those covered by employer-sponsored insurance plans, an analysis by Avalere Health finds.

With just days to go in open enrollment on the ACA’s public exchanges, brokers say the biggest problem is getting a hold of certain carriers, and one in particular rose to the top of the list of complaints.

Employers are making creative changes to employee benefit offerings to stem the tide of rising health care costs, but many are taking a wait-and-see approach to private exchanges, according to presenters at MetLife’s 10th National Benefits Symposium Monday.

Commentary: Employer group waiver plans provide a solution for the struggling public sector

Through a new group annuity program, Towers Watson may have found a solution to retiree medical costs – a burgeoning problem for employers. The option eliminates the financial risk from the table and limits the administrative burdens linked to the benefit.

Employers tend not to change their benefits programs quickly, and the Cadillac Tax is only three more open enrollments away. It might be tempting to wait, but those who evolve their plan designs now have more time to educate and engage their employees on these programs.