Voluntary benefits

Last April, Eastbridge Consulting Group examined the interchangeability of key phrases describing “voluntary” benefits and the “worksite” market.

Employee Benefit News is soliciting short articles from benefits professionals on best practices related to open enrollment and voluntary benefits. Articles selected by the editors will appear in EBN’s June 1 issue or on the Web site.

Aflac Dental policyholders have a reason to smile. The carrier’s new voluntary dental insurance plan now offers multiple levels of coverage and more generous benefits that include higher annual maximums and better orthodontic coverage.

Younger generations aren’t very familiar with critical illness insurance, but challenging times appear to be spiking their interest in other workplace benefits, according to two sets of jointly conducted surveys.

After seeing enrollment in its medical plans gradually dwindle to less than 2% of total group membership, the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America will shutter this product line and instead focus on dental, disability, life, critical illness and disability offerings.

Critics of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) once warned that the law would decimate mini-med plans – that is, until the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) issued regulatory guidance.

Employers are expected to invest more money to protect personal information in response to increased government regulation and enforcement and to stem the rising tide of risk, according to a new report released by Ernst & Young.

The latest news on industry movers and shakers concerns one seasoned executive’s career move and a veteran disability insurance agent earning kudos for his staff from a leading carrier for a thirteenth consecutive year.

The voluntary benefits bandwidth for independent insurance agents and brokers is growing, thanks to a recent industry partnership.

Be sure to mark your calendar for a series of online educational forums in 2011 on disability and absence management co-presented by two industry leaders.

Nothing in life is guaranteed, but working Americans increasingly are in search of flexible income-protection products that will offset market volatility.

The National Business Group on Health has launched an ambitious, three-year initiative aimed at helping employers design benefit plans that reflect the latest information and expert recommendations on cancer treatment and prevention.

Worksite voluntary benefits as we know them are dead. Driven largely by the spiraling cost increases in group health insurance, over the past decade or so employers have been shifting benefit costs to employees.

According to WellPoint Inc. research, 83% of American employees think more highly of employers that offer voluntary insurance benefits than those that don't.

Most economists seem to agree that we are in the middle of a slowly expanding economic recovery. What will be the long-term impact of this historic financial collapse and recovery on the employee benefit and voluntary landscape?

In recent years, employers increasingly have embraced the opportunity to enhance their employee benefit packages by offering access to voluntary benefits such as dental, long-term care, and property and casualty insurance.

The shift to health consumerism hasn't escaped dental benefits. And if health care costs continue to squeeze benefit budgets, then more employers might start turning to voluntary dental plans.

The nation’s the largest health care and voluntary benefits software provider recently teamed up with NASCO to burnish a technology investment made by Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans and improve CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield’s billing system efficiency.

Three months after a leading private equity firm sought to acquire all of Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc.’s common stock for $60 per share in cash, another suitor has come calling for the provider of legal services through the worksite and individual markets to more than 1.5 million families across North America.

Although life insurance made modest gains in the third quarter of 2010 when gross written premiums were up 6% from the same period a year earlier, an Aite Group report notes that premiums fell to historic lows in 2009 when the product was considered an unnecessary discretionary purchase.