Employee benefits

Several major commercial insurers are paying claims faster, but their claims processing error rates are increasing, according to an annual report of insurer performance.

A recent survey from Principal Financial Group confirms that employees who use a financial adviser do significantly better at meeting their retirement savings goals than those who do not.

Providers of bare-bones health insurance plans have until September to seek exemption from certain coverage requirements set under the 2010 health care reform law, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Plan sponsors who forget to actually do discrimination testing run into all sorts of problems, including the possibility that their plan can be disqualified. To pass the Section 105(h) nondiscrimination rules an employer must meet two separate tests.

Enrollment in health savings accounts jumped to more than 11.4 million as of Jan. 1, 2011, according to an annual census released June 14.

Almost 80 percent of employers anticipate that there will be an increased demand for access to savings and investment advice about their 401(k) plans, according to a new survey.

Organizations that integrate workforce and business performance data into their analytics tools are nearly three times as likely to achieve best-in-class performance results as those who don’t, says a new report on workforce analytics from Aberdeen.

As a workplace health and wellness consulting firm, Onlife Health decided to practice what it preaches when the company moved into new offices last fall. Its lease was coming to an end and while its old offices were adequate, the company decided to go to market to see what was available.

As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Yet, according to a recent survey by AARP, 71% of 401(k) plan participants reported that they pay no fees for their plan. When told of the fees, six in ten (62%) were not aware of the amount they pay in fees to maintain their account. Just under one quarter (23%) of those surveyed said that they do pay fees.

This article is the third and final in EBN's annual Preparing for Open Enrollment series, and presents benefits professionals' advice on when and how to rollout a wellness program. The first two articles are available at ebn.benefitnews.com/openenrollment.

In high school, I remember sitting for hours typing documents on printing shells for my school's Ditto machine. While my peers rushed to class in the afternoons, I sat silently typing quizzes, handouts and tests. Other students called me "little miss goody two-shoes," but I didn't mind. I knew working in the school office would teach me the necessary skills to succeed.

When government officials in Orange County, Fla. decided to move to a consumer-driven health plan last fall, they knew they would have to approach communications in a new way. While the county has 6,500 employees, its health plan covers approximately 19,000 lives, including dependents and employees at a few other government agencies.

For the year ending in September 2010, 26.3% of Americans (or 62.8 million people) volunteered through or for an organization at least once, according to the Current Population Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among working Americans, 29.2% volunteered, compared to 23.8% of unemployed persons and 22% of those not in the labor force.

Thomson Reuters, a major vendor of business intelligence services and technology spanning multiple industries, intends to divest its health care operations.

A new report from MetLife suggests that financial advisers need to do a better job of educating their clients about the importance of managing their emotions as well as their spending and investing behavior during and close to retirement just as they did — presumably — when they were younger and saving up for their golden years.

UnitedHealth Group is pushing into managing pharmacy benefits, bucking a trend among U.S. health insurers and threatening the dominance of the three largest companies that help negotiate drug pricing.

Millennials who frequently participate in workplace corporate volunteer programs are more likely to be proud, loyal and satisfied employees, as compared to those who do not, according to a new survey from Deloitte LLP.

WellPoint plans to buy privately held Medicare specialist CareMore to expand its presence in the U.S. government program for the elderly. The deal will advance WellPoint's plans to become a bigger competitor in Medicare.

Two out of three workers would purchase additional health insurance benefits to make sure they are protected, according to a report from Aflac. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they would acquire voluntary insurance.

U.S. employees are not strongly invested in their benefits, and 63% of companies agree that workers need to be more engaged, finds a new Aflac survey. In addition, only half feel their employees take full advantage of the benefits offered. Regardless of whether it’s a failing in communication or actual offerings, 54% of employees would transition jobs for better benefits, despite lower pay.