This month at BenefitNews.com
June's don't miss Web-only content at ebn.benefitnews.com, your best online resource for benefits news and information.
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Mapping a path for change
If you've ever wanted to be a fly on the wall when two benefits brokers are discussing client strategy (and I admit it, I have), then keep reading. In an exclusive to Employee Benefit News, Jack Kwicien, co-founder and managing partner at Daymark Advisors, recently sat down with fellow adviser Beverly Beattie, founder and CEO of Selden Beattie Advisors, to do just that – specifically, a case study involving a Selden Beattie client. Not to worry, no state secrets are spilled, no confidences broken. But the Q&A does offer benefits pros some food for thought to chew on as they plan their next meeting with their own benefits adviser. -from the Editor
Put the ‘Be’ in Benefits: The 401(k) auditor’s wish list
As we approach the audit deadline for employee benefit audit plans, hopefully things are already in motion with your plan auditors. You have received the list of items they need to complete the audit, documents have been exchanged and meetings are planned. But what else can you do to make this year's audit more efficient, less painful and – dare we say – more enjoyable than last year?
From the EBN bookshelf
The editors at EBN have compiled a list of summer reads for the benefits and HR professional. While lounging by the pool, learn more about pressing HR topics of the day. Keep abreast of health care, retirement, and management issues with the following books.
Benefits Think Ovarian cancer screening ineffective, researchers find
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, preventive screening for ovarian cancer is not listed among the services that are required to be covered at no copay or coinsurance, despite the fact that 1 in 72 women will get ovarian cancer, compared to similar 1 in 69 for women age 40-49, who will get breast cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Benefits Think Are house calls a bad call?
I am firmly on record as being highly in favor of doctors who make house calls, so I read a recent article from msnbc.com with interest about WhiteGlove House Call Health, a Texas-based company that connects primary-care practitioners with patients at home for as little as $35 per visit. However, some think that WhiteGlove and similar vendors may be doing a disservice to the health care system.
Benefits Think Cant we all just get along?
Even if youre a hot-head outside the office, Id imagine you and most other benefits professionals would opt for a peaceful solution to workplace disputes if only to avoid litigation, which as we all know can be as costly as it is contentious. In the spirit of peace, two new items from EBN tout the value of arbitration and mediation in resolving workplace disputes.
Benefits Think With wellness, actions speak louder than words
If you truly want to make employee wellness a strategic priority, you can leverage your talent management programs to support it. Guess blogger Sean Conrad of Halogen Software offers some of the practical ways your talent management programs can help.
Hitting lucky number seven
Over the 25 years that I've spent consulting with plan sponsors about their 401(k) retirement plans, I've noticed that the best plans have all or most of these seven attributes:
To market, to market, to buy a new plan
Human resources departments have faced significant cuts due to the economic downturn. Adding the annual benefits marketing to an overloaded schedule can overwhelm an already lean benefits department.
Experts’ comments turn wellness CW on its ear
For the last five years or so, the conventional wisdom on wellness programs is that health risk assessments and biometric screenings are the way to get the best data on employee health status, you have to juice participation by offering incentives, and you have to be prepared to spend a pretty penny to get tangible results.
True confessions from a constant list-maker
Atul Gawande became my hero when I read "The Cost Conundrum" in the June 2009 issue of The New Yorker. The article explores the question of why Medicare costs in McAllen, Texas, are higher than any other place in United States. Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, went to McAllen and conducted his own investigation into the matter.
7 insurers see ratings updates
A.M. Best, Moodys Investors Service and Standard & Poors (S&P) released ratings updates. These are some of the most recent. This list was complied by Jennifer Morrell of Insurance Networking News, a SourceMedia publication.
Benefits Think Dont Fry Day: Great message, despite bad name
Going into the Memorial Day weekend, before hundreds of you head out into the sun for beaches and backyard barbeques, the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention wants you to know that today is Don’t Fry Day. Get it? Friday … Don’t Fry Day. Forgiving the kinda cheesy name, NCSCP’s motives are sound in trying to encourage sun safety awareness by reminding everyone to protect their skin while enjoying the outdoors this holiday weekend and every day.
Benefits Think Lockdown on leave is okay, court rules
Restricting an employees activity while on leave is okay, a federal court ruled recently, stating that an employer may enforce work rules that require employees to "remain in the immediate vicinity" of their home while on sick leave.
Benefits Think Are employers enabling bad retirement habits?
New research from Aon Hewitt reveals that slightly more than three-quarters (75.8%) of eligible employees participated in their companys defined contribution retirement plan last year, up from 73.7% in 2009 and 67.2% in 2005, driven largely by auto-enrollment. Great news? Maybe, maybe not.
Benefits Think Transamerica exec slams working indefinitely as retirement strategy
Its not too surprising to learn that a larger group of workers plan to not retire at all, as Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies recently revealed in a new poll. However, what made me do a double take is that Transamerica officials view employees non-retiring retirement strategy as a bad thing.
Automatic 401(k) deferral rates could be higher
Since most participants accept the deferral rates that are automatically set in 401(k) plans, sponsors should increase those rates to at least 6% or higher, The Principal says.
Senate bill would limit 401(k) loans to three at a time
Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) have proposed the Savings Enhancement by Alleviating Leakage in 401(k) Savings Act (SEAL), which would limit the number of loans that participants can take from their 401(k) to no more than three at a time.
Benefits Think Does your retirement plan have an A+ annuity?
In our winner-take-all culture, we rank, rate and score everything. So, in that vein, along comes the Institutional Retirement Income Council with a scorecard on how plan sponsors can evaluate the suitability of annuities as an investment option within an employer-sponsored defined contribution retirement plan.