Employee benefits

FSA usage should be encouraged throughout the year. Budgeting is easy when using an FSA calculator before opting into the plan to help participants estimate their yearly expenses. And a broker's role when communicating to clients about better FSA budgeting should entail having multiple communications throughout the year.

Some see a number of signs contributing to a reawakening of the rust belt.

Children of such women were more likely to have scores in the lowest quartile for verbal ability, reading accuracy and reading comprehension than those whose mothers had sufficient iodine levels, according to the study published today.

The economic recession may have sparked a retirement crisis in America, but other significant factors played a role in the derail.

Americans living longer means a corresponding uptick in annuity sales.

MetLife Inc. said it would combine an offshore reinsurer with three U.S. life units after regulators began an investigation into the use of intra-company liability transfers, saying such arrangements could mask risk.

A number of misconceptions have prevented these entrepreneurs from doing a better job preparing for retirement.

In order to successfully reach their goals employees must begin embracing the concept of Retirement Readiness with the same commitment as their employers.

Meanwhile, doctors are protesting new guidance for the diagnosis of some mental disorders, including autism, contained in the revised edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Sixty-nine percent of employers tells the IFEBP that they definitely plan to provide employer-sponsored health care when exchanges begin in 2014; in 2012, only 46% of companies were willing to commit to that.

Property and casualty insurers are voicing concerns that longstanding tax exemptions for municipal bonds could be disrupted as part of a broader U.S. tax-code changes being considered by Congress.

The California Bankers Association recently announced a long-term care benefit for employees of member banks throughout the state. The initiative is one of the first of its kind for any large U.S. association, and could be a bellwether for the financial field and beyond.

A 65-year-old couple exiting the workforce in 2013 is estimated to need $220,000 to cover health care costs throughout their retirement, an 8% decrease from last year’s $240,000.

With 15 U.S. states opting out of President Barack Obama’s Medicaid expansion, hospitals that treat poor and uninsured patients are asking the government to delay $64 billion in planned funding cuts.

Recent data released by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers looks at how employers were impacted by the health law that took effect in Massachusetts seven years ago. While it’s no true indicator of what will happen in the future, it could nod to some overall trends.

Three of WellPoint Inc.’s 11 board members have stepped down, citing personal reasons for their decision to depart about six weeks after a new chief executive officer took over at the second-largest U.S. health insurer.

On average, employees with both 401(k)s and health savings accounts tend to save more of their annual salaries (8.5% average annual deferral rate) in their DC accounts than employees with just a DC plan (8.1%).

In a scenario where retirement income and wealth account for 100% of an investor’s simulated retirement expenses, a model projects that around a quarter of baby boomers and Gen Xers who would have had sufficient retirement income under interest rates at historical averages would run out of money if the current low rates were taken as a permanent condition.

Forty-one percent of those surveyed said they have held off on hiring new employees as a result of the ACA. “One of the most concerning unintended consequences of the Affordable Care Act is that we see employers looking to stay under the 50-employee threshold, if at all possible,” says one expert.

Making connections is as important as ever, though the process is changing considerably.