Employee benefits

A panel including a security specialist and FTC privacy staffer talked Monday at an American Payroll Association meeting about common mistakes employers make with their employees’ personal data and what the right make-up of a privacy team at a company should look like.

The percentage of Americans who currently obtain health insurance coverage through their employers continues to drop, indicating an ongoing trend among benefit plan sponsors and HR decision-makers to shift costs to public and private exchanges.

The private and public exchanges offer employers an opportunity to help manage costs and provide personalized benefits, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution, industry experts say.

Fidelity Investments has concocted a new educational product suite – to be available on your nearby desktop computer – that will ease the burden that faces both defined contribution plan sponsors as well as plan participants in managing future saving needs.

By bundling all costs for the surgery under one negotiated price and offering expertise that lowers the odds of complications, the Cleveland Clinic can give employers a better deal than some hospitals closer to employees' homes.

On Feb. 26, Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, released a discussion draft of the Tax Reform Act of 2014 that more completely spells out the tradeoffs for tax reform. Camp’s draft legislation reduces and simplifies the current income tax rate structure, but may modify or eliminate provisions relating to employee benefit plans.

Looking toward the end of 2014 open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s health exchanges, Gary Cohen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said Thursday at an AHIP conference that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is expecting a “fairly significant spike in enrollments."

In two employer-focused sessions at AHIP’s annual policy conference in Washington this week, the excise tax in the ACA — known as the Cadillac tax — dominated the list of future concerns for plan sponsors.

Are your clients prepared for a 401(k) plan audit? When the Employee Benefits Security Administration knocks on the door and starts requesting plan documents, financial records, account statements, contracts and more, it can be overwhelming. The best offense is a good defense, so be prepared. Take a glimpse into a recent audit and the laundry list of documents requested.

As consumer-directed health plans proliferate in response to market forces, their success will be contingent upon a workforce that is comfortable with using health savings accounts to pay and save for qualified medical expenses.

Despite a reported 4.4% increase in employer health care costs in 2014, the majority of large U.S. employers say they are more inclined to maintain benefits to active employees, but will modify plans and continue to shift over costs to their employees.

A new study from PricewaterhouseCoopers finds consumers are a lot less focused on the price of their plan than insurance executives believe them to be.

Fortune 500 employers gathered Wednesday for a panel at the America’s Health Insurance Plans annual policy conference in Washington to deliver an up-to-date perspective on private exchanges.

Commentary: Automatic features have all helped retirement plan participants, but what should employers and committees discuss this year as they plan for future improvements in their plans as a way to seek to improve the retirement outcomes for their participants?

While most people understand the need for medical and dental insurance, the value of voluntary benefits is less understood. That’s why advisers should be selling them as “financial protection,” says one voluntary sales expert.

Commentary: The Catalyst for Payment Reform scored each state on its level of health care cost transparency — 29 received an F, only two scored an A. Transparency of health care cost and quality must be the founding principle of sustainable change, says Borislow Insurance’s Mark Gaunya.

Much has been made about how the exchanges are playing in Peoria, but what about Portugal, Poland or Peru?

President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2015 budget proposal includes nearly $14 million for the Department of Labor to combat the misclassification of workers as independent contractors, which renders them ineligible for certain benefits and protections under the law.

While outsourcing is a dirty word for many U.S. workers, most organizations that outsource benefits administration do so not to reduce HR head count, but rather to achieve legal compliance, reduce burdens on internal staff, gain efficiencies and gain access self-service technology.

With mid-term elections bearing down, the government changed its regulation of Obamacare to give consumers and states more flexibility to decide on their health plans, insurers more time to sign up customers and taxpayers a chance to avoid more costs.