Practice management

Columnist Jack Kwicien on how you go about selecting the right merger candidate.

Benefits broker John Garven juggles enrollment meetings while using Twitter to amplify his business.

In hoping for expanded access to health insurance, proponents of the emerging HIX marketplace have had to make a few Faustian deals along the way to realizing their objectives. One such tradeoff under the Affordable Care Act involves narrower provider networks – an old strategy used to rein in runaway costs that’s rooted in the managed care era.

Freeing up resources that are used inefficiently can actually improve the quality of your relationships with both clients and employees.

In the advising business, you are your client list, so don't be afraid to fire a client who commits one of four cardinal sins, blogger Jerry Kalish writes.

When it comes to having an engaged workforce, who your employees work with — rather than who they report to — is an increasingly important factor, according to a recent survey.

Lou Faiola takes relationships to a new level. From carriers to brokers to beneficiaries, his commitment to benefits is apparent to all whose lives he touches.

It’s been 70 years since benefits originated, and brokers would be wise to remember that innovation as inspiration to keep their businesses in the future.

Join a powerful network of brokers, agents and advisers Dec. 10-12 in Chicago for Workplace Benefits Transitions.

The Obama administration says much of the site is fixed but it’s not clear still how much of that is true.

A staple component of every independent brokerage and agency for marketing and service, this element changed dramatically for most brokers in 2013

President Barack Obama raised the stakes on his three-year-old health care overhaul Sunday, declaring that fixes to his administration’s troubled insurance exchange website make it ready to sign up 800,000 people a day.

Towers Watson acquired Liazon Corporation, a leader in developing and delivering private benefit exchanges for active employees, last week. Representatives of the consultancy believe that this acquisition, which follows the purchase of Extend Health in June 2012, has solidified their position as the leading player in the private exchange market through its OneExchange solution.

The decision by CMS leaves just eight days for insurers to send bills to those signing up on the last day of the enrollment period.

Quandary emerges for brokers who trained on the systems but might not want the business.

Consulting firm Towers Watson announced today it has bought private health care exchange provider Liazon, which operates the Bright Choices exchange, for $215 million. The deal further validates the private exchange market, says one of Liazon's competitors.

Public support for the U.S. health care overhaul fell to its lowest level in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey after the Oct. 1 debut of government-run insurance marketplaces greeted consumers with breakdowns on websites, higher prices and potentially broken promises.

Kansas, North Dakota and other state insurance commissioners snubbed a meeting with President Barack Obama set up to discuss allowing some people to keep medical plans that don’t meet the requirements of the U.S. health law.

A public employer in California is building its own marketplace to mirror public exchanges under the Affordable Care Act — a potential idea for brokers for prospecting.

Agents think the road ahead is between providing more value-added services, including compliance advice, versus losing business. Some agents think that the choice is between sell more ancillary products or continue to watch revenues fall. In my mind, the real choice is this: Do you want to be an insurance agent or a fee-based adviser? The difference is huge.