Healthcare plans

While the number of overall insurers included in the Fortune 500 diminished slightly yet again—from 49 in 2010 to 47 last year to 46 this year—Nationwide provided insurers with one more top-100 slot by moving up 27 spots.

The annual MetLife Study of Employee Benefits Trends, which tracks major trends and attitudes on the subject of employee benefits, was recently released and it has a good news/bad news message for employers. EBA contributor Ron Leopold shares five ways progressive employers stand out in the benefits arena.

A 65-year-old couple retiring in 2012 is estimated to need $240,000 to cover medical expenses throughout retirement, according to the latest retiree health care costs estimate calculated by Fidelity Investments. This represents a 4% increase from last year, when the estimate was $230,000.

A majority of employees (90%) recognize the importance of group disability insurance and believe their employer should offer it, according to a recent Unum survey — but most (52%) do not understand this coverage. Not only does this present an opportunity for brokers to build their trusted adviser status with employers, it also has great potential to lead to more sales of the product. Because, despite their lack of knowledge about employer-provided disability insurance, 88% of employees surveyed think is it is personally important to be covered.

U.S. hospitals are ripping out wall-mounted toilets and replacing them with floor models to better support obese patients. The Federal Transit Administration wants buses to be tested for the impact of heavier riders on steering and braking. Cars are burning nearly a billion gallons of gasoline more a year than if passengers weighed what they did in 1960.

In kasina’s yet-to-be released 2nd annual study, findings indicate that about 87% of asset managers and insurers use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, but very few are experiencing increased sales.

Health insurers are on the hook for an estimated $1.3 billion in rebates by August of this year, if they were not in compliance with the Medical Loss Ratio provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for 2011, according to analysis by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

With age comes wisdom supposedly, but even as more Americans are living longer they are not financially prepared for their retirement years and also lack life insurance.

Despite employees’ lack of knowledge about employer-provided disability insurance, almost all respondents recognize the importance of this insurance and desire its coverage, according to a survey released Monday.

In December, I blogged about how voluntary benefits can help employers increase employees’ comfort level with CDHPs. For example, studies have shown that employees are generally uneasy about high out-of-pocket medical cost exposure. They appreciate having voluntary programs such as accident, cancer or critical illness Insurance to help supplement their CDHP coverage in the event of high dollar, unexpected claims. …

Cathy Meyers had already fought cancer twice, once in 1992, again in 2003, before she was diagnosed for a third time with neuroendocrine cancer in the pancreas in 2009. She thought her time was up. How could fate hand someone a proverbial death sentence three times in a row, with the third being the same cancer that sent Steve Jobs to his deathbed?

Something is costing your health plan a whole lot of money, and it's largely due to uninformed choice. No, it's not lax benefit selections, but rather early induced deliveries.

Cost increases for health care are perhaps slowing down somewhat, with employer health benefit expenditures not expected to increase in 2012 at the same explosive growth rate of 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. It's 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.

Delivering quality health care benefits to an employee population has only become more complicated due to legislative policy and escalating claims costs - making consumer education and empowerment all the more important in containing cost increases.

Although the tax implications of total compensation may sound as dry as the Sahara, Ernst & Young principal Sean Watts says that knowing the potential pitfalls before developing or changing your total comp strategy could help you avoid a compliance sandstorm and be the oasis your bottom line needs.

A dear friend, who is a veteran nurse, recently told me about her husband's post-operative experience. The surgery itself went well; immediately after his return to the nursing unit, he was appropriately asked by his nurse, "How is your pain?" Using the almost-universal pain scale, she asked him to rate his pain from zero (being no pain at all) to 10 (being the worst pain you've ever experienced).

When the recession hit, older employees put the brakes on their retirement plans and companies shelved plans to hire, train, develop and promote younger talent. With the economy growing again and retirement savings beginning to recover, baby boomers are again thinking about retirement. As a result, employers are again thinking of ways to attract, engage, and retain new talent.

The sale of asset-based long-term care insurance protection continues to grow significantly, reveals research by the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance.

A new research report from the Commonwealth Fund offers new insights into America’s uninsured.

Liberty Mutual Insurance’s Group Benefits operation became the first to introduce a mobile application that makes it easier for employees and clients to manage their benefits.