Employee benefits

The authors of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would be quick to point out that our plan is not required to cover dependent children — but we do have to cover the 26-year-olds if we want to cover the newborns and preschoolers. Some choice.

Plan sponsors can raise the level of participation in voluntary benefits by providing live assistance to explain options to their employees, according to a recent survey.

Employer organizations and trade groups expressed mixed reactions Wednesday afternoon when the first federal appeals court to rule on the health care reform law upheld the constitutionally of its so-called individual mandate provision.

In a panel discussion at the Insured Retirement Institute’s regulatory conference on Tuesday officials from the Departments of Labor and Treasury discussed increasing access to guaranteed lifetime income products and the proposed rule on the definition of a fiduciary that would regulate retirement savings programs and professionals.

President Barack Obama and U.S. congressional leaders hope to reach a budget deal in the coming weeks that would narrow stubborn budget deficits and extend the country's borrowing authority.

Before joining Zappos Chief Executive Tony Hsieh dreaded coming to work at his own company. It wasn’t fun to work there anymore because the company culture went completely down the drain, he told the keynote audience at the annual Society for Human Resource Management conference in Las Vegas.

Many Americans age 50 and older worry about funding their long-term care, don’t feel financially prepared, and would strongly prefer to receive long-term care at home rather than in a nursing home, according to a recently released survey.

The New Jersey Assembly on June 23 approved a bill that will require 750,000 government employees and retirees to contribute substantially more for their health insurance and pensions.

Rep. Mike Rogers told the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee last week that health insurance agents and brokers are in a "desperate situation," due to medical loss ratio determinations.

Advisers should work closely with health insurers to improve service fundamentals that drive employer satisfaction and commitment to benefit sponsorship, suggests new research that also identifies the best-performing vendors.

Writing out retirement income plans is a great way for financial advisers to increase client satisfaction, gain more referrals and ultimately increase assets — yet few of them do it, according to a new study from Fidelity Investments.

Will the new health plan law make health coverage more expensive for your firm or staff? The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a report this week saying that for companies with fewer than 50 workers, costs should drop.

The total number of teleworkers – people who work from home or other remote locations for an entire day at least once a month – in the U.S. has declined in 2010, according to the results of a survey.

Improving health plan services that constrain costs and ease administrative hassles could go a long way toward keeping employers in the game as health care reform unfolds in 2014.

As controversy continues to brew over the validity of a McKinsey survey finding 30% of respondents would likely drop employee health care coverage in the years following the implementation of health reform’s state exchanges, a survey on the same topic from Lockton reveals a more conservative estimate: nearly one in five employers (18%) say they will consider terminating group coverage.

When financial advisers look to work with women, they should keep two things in mind: the wooing process tends to take longer, but they are usually more loyal, according to Sallie Krawcheck, president of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's global wealth and investment management unit.

Fewer Americans are getting medical coverage through their jobs than a decade ago but the 2010 U.S. health care law should help stabilize employer-sponsored insurance, two studies released on Tuesday showed.

Consultant McKinsey & Co defends the methodology behind its survey gauging employers' views on providing health insurance to workers, a report that drew criticism from U.S. health reform supporters.

America’s long-term care facilities are subject to rising liability costs, a new study from Aon Corp. and the American Health Care Association finds.

Combination life insurance products, which combine a pool of benefit dollars for covered long-term care expenses, a death benefit for beneficiaries, or both, showed tremendous growth in 2010, with new premium sales soaring 62% to $1.2 billion, according to LIMRA research released June 17.