Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Beyond health insurance and retirement benefits (covered in previous surveys), the number one perk provided by the employers responding to our survey was paid holidays, with 91% percent of them offering it. Other highlights: Flextime is offered by 53% of respondents. About 33% relax their dress code in the summer, at least for some […]
Some employee benefits such as child care and transportation benefits are soon to be offered to the same-sex domestic partners of military members, U.S. Department of Defense recently announced. Outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta indicated in Feb. 11 memo that the move was a step toward conferring benefits to same-sex partners that currently are only […]
New guidelines from the U.S. Department of Labor help defined benefit plan sponsors see and report exactly what’s changed for their calculation of pension plan liabilities under Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act requirements. Several changes to ease funding requirements for DB plans arrived with the start of MAP 21’s transportation reauthorization […]
If small companies self-insure their health plans and in doing so can get stop-loss coverage with very low attachment points, they could siphon healthy lives away from the new insurance market designed by health reform to insure millions of new lives, the Urban Institute warned in a April 2013 report. The Institute explained that low […]
Health plans now may begin applying for the standard health plan identifier required by HIPAA, CMS has announced. The online application was posted March 29 on CMS’ Health Plan and Other Entity Enumeration System (HPOES). Most HIPAA-covered health plans, including employer group health plans, must obtain an HPID by Nov. 5, 2014, except that “small health […]
The health reform law provides that entities called “Navigators” will assist consumers and small businesses in researching health insurance exchanges — but stop-loss insurers for self-funded health plans won’t be one of them. Those insurers, as well as individuals and other entities with too close a financial relationship to such insurers, would be excluded from […]
Companies that self-fund health benefits are larger than companies that fully insure health benefits and their solvency is just as good as companies that fully insure, a government report required by the health reform law indicates. The reform law requires reports on the prevalence, solvency and quality of self-funded plans, with the stated goal of […]
Fiduciaries of 401(k) plans were reminded by a recent court decision that it’s best not to accept financial consultants’ investment advice for a retirement plan’s assets without careful scrutiny. At the same time the case, which raised other issues important to managing defined contribution plans, resulted in several rulings in the plan sponsor’s favor. Facts […]
Recently, four bills were introduced in state legislatures that would make self-funding less attractive by limiting stop-loss coverage for self-insured health plans. Many such proposals would raise minimum specific deductibles above the standard $20,000 seen in most enacted laws. This and other measures are intended to rein in self-insured plans, observers in the self-insured industry […]
Amid historically low interest rates, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent affirmation of a retirement plan’s choice of discount rate for converting annuities into lump-sum payments to beneficiaries should reassure defined benefit plan sponsors facing similar challenges. In Dennison v. MONY Life Retirement Income Security Plan (No. 12-2407, 7th Cir., March 6, 2013), […]