Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Federal courts on numerous occasions in the last two years have dismissed plan participant allegations that their employers charged excessive retirement plan fees. The rulings taken together say: If a plan is not enriching itself at participants’ expense — or operating with a conflict of interest in relation to its investment company — then it’s […]
Length of COBRA coverage varies according to the type of qualifying event. The following events qualify an individual for COBRA continuation coverage if the event causes loss of coverage for a qualified beneficiary: Termination or reduction of hours of a covered employee other than because of the employee’s gross misconduct Death of a covered employee […]
It’s like the Hollywood movie Groundhog Day all over again. The Self Insurance Institute of America (SIIA) wakes up and has to face the same “anti-self-funding” arguments about adverse selection, insolvency and inferior benefits that it refuted last year … the year before … and the year before that. Again in damage-control mode, this time the […]
Employers that want to self-fund their health benefits (and the vendors and attorneys who want to serve them) have yet another (as they see it) unreasonable opponent to self-insuring health benefits. An adviser to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners has told NAIC that it should amend its model stop-loss coverage law to prohibit the […]
Stop me if you’ve heard this one — a car is burglarized, and hardware goes missing that turns out to have sensitive personal data on thousands of beneficiaries, employees, patients and customers. Same old story — but in the millions this time. Medical information on nearly 5 million military clinic and hospital patients was on backup […]
Gross Misconduct Means No COBRA, But … Termination for gross misconduct is not a qualifying event under COBRA, so COBRA continuation coverage does not have to be offered to an employee and his or her spouse and dependent children if the employee was terminated for gross misconduct. Unfortunately, the term “gross misconduct” is not defined […]
Incentive comp is certainly on the front burner these days as companies struggle with strapped budgets and weary employees. It’s not getting easier for comp professionals. But what’s happening in the real world? Who’s paying what to whom? Let’s find out. Please participate in this brief survey and we’ll determine just what employers are offering […]
Employers and plan administrators that have a hard time choosing the version of the Form 5500 to file for earlier plan years, and which schedules to file, now have some help. That assistance comes from none other than the Department of Labor (DOL) — one of the agencies that imposes the filing requirement in the first […]
If a plan participant needs a special diet that costs more than an ordinary, everyday diet, or had to have a hearing aid repaired, he or she can deduct those expenses. Specially Prepared Foods In Information Letter 2011-0035, the IRS said that if an individual consumes a special diet for medical reasons, the amount by […]
It’s important to disclose information through ERISA-required documents properly: it can be a plan administrator’s last line of defense if participants allege that they suffered losses because they didn’t know their rights or important plan terms. That obligation has grown in response to the financial scandals of the last decade (Enron, WorldCom, mortgage-leveraged bonds, etc.). […]