Employee benefits

Semantics are supremely important in making or breaking certain lines of insurance.

With serious concerns about medical commission cuts and maintaining top-line revenues, 58% of brokers and consultants are embracing two specific initiatives EBA contributor Nelson Griswold explains in the December issue.

As high-deductible and consumer-driven health plans continue to increase in popularity, EBA spoke with Nitra LaGrander, a product manager at Evolution1, a provider of electronic payment, on-premise and cloud computing health care solutions, for tips on how plan participants who are new to these types of plans can easily access their online accounts and take charge of managing their health care dollars.

Retirement plans collectively - but unwillingly - hold billions of dollars that plan sponsors have unsuccessfully tried to distribute to former participants.

Some experts are predicting that there will be fewer advisers focused on the 401(k)/defined contribution market. With greater competition, price pressure, more onerous regulations and increased fiduciary liability, that argument is understandable. But regardless of the pressure and challenges that the DC market poses, the number of elite advisers that focus on the DC market will double in the next five years because of the size of the opportunity.

Turning the corner into 2012, 401(k) plans are regaining some of their lost glitter, but more buffing needs to be done.

Long-term care is a "problem every-body will face and no one wants to talk about." But with the shelving of the CLASS Act by Congress, planning for long-term care is becoming part of the national conversation - and that presents an opportunity for brokers.

Following the Eastbridge Consulting Group report earlier this year that showed a decrease in voluntary benefits sales during 2010, it has been refreshing to see that, according to recent insurance carriers' annual surveys, employees' interest remains strong.

Nearly two-thirds, 63.8%, of plan sponsors have changed the investment lineup in their 401(k) plan in the past year, up markedly from a mere 20% in 2008, according to the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America.

Eighteen months after passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, group medical benefits costs are on the rise once again, according to The November Employee Benefits Market Survey conducted by The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers.

Consumers who receive a financial needs analysis are more likely to buy life insurance, and purchase larger face amounts, than those who don’t receive an analysis, according to LIMRA’s 2011 U.S. Buyer-Nonbuyer study.

Mercer has launched a new blog for employers that it hopes will be thought-provoking. M/THINK also includes data-rich infographics and commentaries on key business issues facing today’s employers.

The U.S. health care system is more effective at delivering high costs than quality care, according to a new study that found first-rate treatment for cancer but insufficient primary care for other ailments.

There may be only one day a year devoted to giving thanks. But expressing thanks regularly — year round — and doing it well is one of the most profitable business strategies you can have.

I find Walmart to be a wholly disconcerting place. I just find it very strange that it sells tires, toothpaste, turkeys, tinsel and t-shirts all under the same gigantic roof — and markets this as a good thing. One-stop shopping is one thing, but sheesh. Anyway, Walmart has confused me once more, with two recent developments. Last month, the nation’s largest retailer and private employer announced it would stop providing health benefits to its part-time workforce.…

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued its first rebuke to an insurer under the federal rate review provision of the Affordable Care Act.

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Amidst high U.S. unemployment and against the backdrop of a volatile economy, workers 18-34 years old are increasingly concerned about job loss and having to delay retirement, according to the 2011 Mercer Workplace Survey, a nationally representative survey of employees enrolled in their employer’s 401(k) and health plans.

The ranks of the nation's oldest residents are growing quickly now that people who reach age 90 are expected to live longer than ever before, according to a study released on Thursday.

With an eye on both their employees’ health and their bottom line, multiemployer and public employer plans are rapidly embracing value-based health care — an outcome-driven, consumer-centered approach that focuses not on the dollars being spent, but on how those dollars can improve employees’ health.