Employee benefits

Xavier University, one of the oldest Roman Catholic colleges in the United States, will cut off birth-control coverage for its employees in July, a move that has divided faculty members and students on the Cincinnati campus.

Confidence in retirement security is shaky with only 36% of baby boomers saying they have enough assets to live comfortably in retirement, according to a new study.

Good news for worksite marketing prospects: Nearly 20% of Americans who shop for life insurance do so through their workplace — and 75% of those shoppers went on to buy life insurance, according to a recent LIMRA survey. However, the survey also reveals several missed opportunities for producers.

Insurers wondering how to engage the Millennial Generation may have to fine-tune their marketing efforts or find more innovative products to pitch. According to market researchers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, as a result of the Great Recession, a younger cohort of this group has emerged with very different values, desires and lifestyles.

Cost increases for health care are perhaps finally slowing down, with employer health benefit expenditures not expected to increase in 2012 at the same explosive growth in recent years. Costs for all types of medical plans are expected to increase by 9.9% for 2012, according to a survey by Buck Consultants, the first time since 2001 that Buck's survey has projected cost increases less than 10% for any type of plan. The firm has been conducting its survey since 1999.

Americans may be overly optimistic when it comes to thinking they won't ever be diagnosed with a serious illness or experience an accident, according to a recent survey.

Most American investors mistakenly believe that target-date funds provide guaranteed income in retirement, among other misconceptions of how the instruments work, the SEC found in a recent investor survey.

The White House was forced on the defensive on Wednesday as it sought to explain controversial remarks President Barack Obama made earlier in the week about the Supreme Court's review of his signature health care reform law.

There has been a lot of information in the news about health care reform and how it affects small businesses. Yet, I still find many business owners scratching their heads trying to understand what it all means for their businesses. To simplify matters, here are five things small employers must know about employee health benefits—especially in a post-health care reform environment:

Small businesses aren’t known for offering rich retirement plans; workers in firms with fewer than 100 employees are much less likely to have a retirement plan available to them than workers in large firms, according to the Small Business Administration. The financial services industry is making inroads to service small business retirement needs, however, most recently with the Merrill Edge Small Business 401(k) through Bank of America. This retirement solution offers small business owners, who generally have 401(k) plan assets under $250,000, a simplified, easy-to-manage retirement plan with lower costs than many traditional 401(k) plans, enabling small businesses to provide an important benefit to their employees.

Life insurers may want to take a closer look at their annuity offerings. The 2008 financial crisis has changed a lot of financial advisers’ minds about insured retirement solutions, namely variable annuities, according to a new survey by AllianceBernstein L.P. and the Insured Retirement Institute.

More plan sponsors continue to start wellness programs, while the majority of organizations with programs currently in place are looking to expand and invest, according to the 2011 Willis Health and Productivity Survey by Willis North America's Human Capital Practice.

Continued economic uncertainty has led all workers to dip into their retirement savings, but minorities have been the hardest hit, according to a new study from Ariel Education Initiative (a nonprofit affiliate of Ariel Investments) and Aon Hewitt. Compared to their Asian and white counterparts, African-American and Hispanic employees are eroding their retirement savings at an alarming rate.

What better way to take lessons of branding a wellness program than from one of the top-branded companies in the world, Procter and Gamble? The producers of timeless product lines like Old Spice and Tide recently introduced Vibrant Living, P&G’s in-house line of benefits specially designed to help employees live healthier.

President Barack Obama said on Monday he was confident the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold the health care reform law that has been one of the signature issues of his presidency.

Most marketing executives at Wall Street firms believe that new regulations governing the financial services industry will go a long way toward helping banks, brokerage houses and investment banks improve their reputations.

Americans who use the services of a financial professional are significantly more likely to have taken steps toward preparing for retirement than those who do not, finds the first quarterly results of a Principal Financial Well-Being Index.

Although it's hard to start a conversation about death and dying, providing employees with a benefit option that will help them ensure their end-of-life affairs are in order can not only provide peace of mind, but also can keep loved ones from paying a heavy price both emotionally and financially for a funeral they were not prepared to plan.

One of our clients, a Midwest employee benefits agency, came to us with a serious problem. Revenues were down 19% over the previous year, despite an increased marketing budget. They spent their $137,000 budget on brand-building - including a $15,000 sponsorship of the 18th hole at the local pro-am celebrity golf tournament, a $10,000 sponsorship of the Heart Gala, full-page glossy ads in the local business magazine and half-page ads in the weekly business paper. While they couldn't say for certain what, if any, new business resulted from these efforts, the net result was an almost 20% drop in revenue. Not surprising, but still a terrible waste of resources.

Over the past two years, fees charged by financial advisers to new mid- and large-market defined contribution/401(k) clients have been shrinking at an alarming rate. This decline is driven by a number of factors. As with many other trends, it is likely that deflationary pricing will move downmarket. More than ever, it is essential that advisers clearly define their value proposition to employers and participants who, for the first time, will be able to easily determine what they are paying as a result of the new disclosure regulations - or risk being commoditized competing on fees.