Employee benefits

New research from MetLife spotlights a disconnect between the perceptions of voluntary benefits held by employers and employees.

Insurance companies and investment firms offering retirement services to companies large and small are learning that attention to detail and improved communication with the plan sponsors and, indirectly, plan participants can dramatically improve their customer retention and satisfaction rates.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s retirement services unit is generating significant new business, much of it from existing clients of the bank.

Contributions from employers to workers’ account-based health plans have dropped for the last two years, the Employee Benefit Research Institute reports.

Most health systems adopting an accountable care organization model will lose money during the first three years, according to a report published March 24 on the New England Journal of Medicine website.

An analysis of 43,600 patient accounts at North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System with balances greater than $50 at discharge shows that when a family's spending on health care exceeds 3.5% of income, a tipping point is reached on the ability to pay.

American workers exited 2010 with more than $10.2 trillion invested in employer-sponsored retirement plans, up10% from the $9.3 trillion in play at the close of 2009, according to a new report from Chicago-based investor consultant Spectrem Group.

Customers are actually spending far more on their own health care costs than the government traditionally reports.

An analysis of Fidelity’s 74,000 HSA accounts has revealed several interesting trends regarding contribution rates and spending behavior.

With regulatory reform bringing a wave of changes to defined contribution plans, retirement plan advisers need to be even more conversant in the ins and outs of legislative requirements and other complexities. Which is why BlackRock is beefing up its commitment to advisers who work with these retirement plans.

March Madness means some workers are paying more attention to their bracket results than responding to workplace e-mails. Two new surveys show how the NCAA basketball tournament may be affecting your workplace.

The most persuasive health information won't always serve your best interests, U.S. doctors report.

California's insurance regulator has thrown its weight behind a lawsuit accusing Bristol Myers Squibb Co of dishing out kickbacks to doctors who prescribe its drugs.

A sluggish economy hasn’t slowed the nation’s health care consumerism movement, according to a recent analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

Employees improved all areas of their personal finances last year, according to a study by El Segundo, Calif.-based Financial Finesse, but many are concerned they haven't saved enough to retire.

Troubles are mounting for a health insurer over loss of several server drives containing enrollee and employee information.

Even after plan design changes, employers can expect their health care costs to increase by 7% in 2011, a sure sign that an aggressive approach to plan design is here to stay, finds research by the National Business Group on Health and Towers Watson.

Benefit professionals have tirelessly lobbied for an end to the so-called use-it-or-lose it rule governing pretax employee contributions to a flexible spending account, which is now the centerpiece of a bipartisan proposal in Congress.

Most Americans still aren't saving anywhere near enough money to afford the dignified retirement they all claim is so important to them. Even worse, most don't have any idea exactly how much they'll need if they were to begin saving today for their golden years.

The barometer is falling when it comes to how well companies are helping employees focus on their retirement income as well as retirement savings. In a new report on Fortune 1000 companies, MetLife’s inaugural Qualified Retirement Plan Barometer assigned a score across all plan types of 59 out of a possible 100. The higher the barometer, the stronger the overall culture of retirement income. While individual scores vary, the companies that offer broad access to defined benefit and defined contribution plans outpace plan sponsors who offer only a DC plan or incidental access to a DB plan as well as a DC plan.