Healthcare plans

Most advisers and their clients don’t see eye to eye on measuring portfolio performance, according to global asset manager Russell Investments’ latest quarterly survey of U.S. financial advisers.

As more employers introduce employees to consumer-driven health plans with a health savings account, utilization grows of those HSAs. Last week, UMB Healthcare Services announced a growth of 36% of HSA account balances, surpassing $400 million dollars following 2011 open enrollment. The number of HSAs stood at nearly 220,000 at year-end.

In a new report, titled “Opportunities in Reaching the Middle Market with Life Insurance,” Conning estimates the middle market life insurance protection gap to be $10.2 trillion — a 56% increase when compared to the firm’s last study of the middle market in 2006. The total protection gap across all income brackets has more than doubled.

About 44% of employers believe they will provide employee health benefits through a corporate exchange in the next three to five years, according to a new study.

It’s an appealing proposition, to set a certain price to what you’ll spend on employee’s health care costs. Long gone may be the days of having to wait an entire year to know what your numbers are for this year and basing future strategy on numbers you don’t have. It’s the appeal of an exchange, where employers could release their employees to the winds to choose what kind of coverage they want.

The Obama administration on Monday released broad new operating rules for state-run health insurance exchanges, which form a key part of the 2010 federal health care reform law that will face landmark Supreme Court hearings in just two weeks.

House Republican leaders are looking for a way to reshape the debate over the administration's new rule on birth control insurance coverage before moving ahead with a bid to nullify the requirement.

Although the rate of health care cost increases is expected to remain stable in 2012, employers are taking more aggressive steps to manage their rising costs and improve employee health, according to findings from the 2012 Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care. The survey was completed by 512 employers who work at companies with at least 1,000 employees and collectively employ 9.1 million full-time employees, and represent more than $87 billion in annual health care spending.

Fortune Magazine’s list of the 50 Most Admired Companies only includes one insurer, Berkshire Hathaway, at No. 7. However, the news outlet ranked insurers separately in their own categories: “Property and Casualty,” “Life and Health” and “Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care.”

Almost half of men and 46% of women who purchased individual critical illness insurance policies in 2011 were younger than age 45, according to a recent survey.

The American Association for Critical Illness Insurance estimates that about one million Americans now have CI insurance protection. It's a good thing too, as nearly two-thirds of U.S. bankruptcies are the result of medical expenses, the association reports.

Open enrollment 2012 is long wrapped up, but carriers are already preparing for 2013. As the health care market is in a constant state of change, EBA spoke with the major medical providers for their views of trends and what to expect in the future.

Traditional health plans are designed around the idea of treating sickness and chronic conditions. Your employees get sick, go to the doctor, get treated, the explanation of benefits statements is sent out, and employees try desperately, and many times unsuccessfully, to understand the EOB (how much do they owe and to whom?) and then the cycle starts all over again.

Avalanches seem to happen randomly, out of the blue. But to experienced skiers and climbers, the warning signs are obvious. Similarly, people with asymptomatic preconditions can appear healthy, but the warning signs of impending chronic conditions are there if you know what to look for.

Employers likely would have better luck predicting winning lottery numbers than how the Supreme Court will rule this summer on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. So many benefits practitioners, like Karrie Andes, SPHR, senior benefits manager for Kansas City-based virtual meeting provider PGi, have decided simply not to try to read the legal tea leaves. Rather, Andes and her team - while keeping a close eye on the legal challenges that mounted since the law's passage two years ago, and this month's oral arguments before the Supreme Court - opted for a business-as-usual approach to make sure PGi's health plans first and foremost continued "protecting associates and dependents on our health plan and also helping competitively with attracting talent," Andes says.

As medical costs go up and household income lags behind, more people are likely to qualify for health care tax deductions.

From carriers to brokers, enrollers to consultants, the message was the same to the more than 600 attendees gathered Tuesday in Atlantic City, N.J. for the Workplace Benefits Renaissance: Voluntary benefits are a mounting source of opportunity for those who are prepared to take advantage

A U.S. judge last week ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and said a federal government worker should be allowed to enroll her same-sex spouse in her health insurance coverage, the latest rebuke of a law reviled by gay rights activists.

It’s not often that you hear the leader of a Fortune 100 company publicly acknowledge the imminent demise of his venerable, profitable business model.

When American workers engage in healthy habits offered in consumer-driven health plans, they can lower their total medical costs an average of $9,700 per employee over a five-year period, according to a recent study.