Navigating the 401(k) Jargon Jungle

November 5, 2012

Tweet The Department of Labor recently issued new regulations regarding the disclosure of information about the fees that 401(k) plan providers charge to employers and individual plan participants. The first new requirement kicked in on July 1, the deadline for providers to send information to employers regarding annual administration and management fees.  A second new [...]

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Preparing for 2014 Health Reform: Six Benchmarks of Benefit-Plan Compliance

October 22, 2012

Tweet Employers may face stepped up scrutiny of benefits-plan compliance by the U.S. Department of Labor following full implementation of health reform in 2014, says Lockton Senior Vice President and Director of Compliance Services Mark Holloway. Here’s a short checklist to help you avoid the most-frequent non-compliance issues: Make sure you have both a plan [...]

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Four Tips for Minimizing Growth in Health-Care Plan Premiums

October 5, 2012

Tweet Last month the Kaiser Family Foundation released the results of its annual Employer Health Benefits Survey and reported that annual premiums for employer-sponsored health coverage rose modestly in 2012. For family coverage, the premium increase averaged four percent this year, and three percent for worker-only coverage. The survey is a joint project of the [...]

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Study: Voluntary Benefits Popular with Younger Workers

September 18, 2012

Tweet Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company released its 10th annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends, a widely respected report that measures and summarizes the key developments regarding the workforce benefits landscape. This year’s study was conducted in fall 2011, and based on 1,519 interviews with benefits decision-makers and 1,402 interviews with employees. [...]

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5 Winning HR Executive Strategies for 2012 & Beyond

September 6, 2012

Tweet A Guest Post by Kathleen Occhiogrosso I interviewed Kathleen Occhiogrosso this week, the current Director of Human Resources-Acute Care Troy for St. Peter’s Health Partners, and former Vice President of Human Resources at Seton Health, who shared five helpful tips for HR executives looking to overcome the current challenges of 2012 and beyond: Find [...]

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Designing an Effective Workplace Strategy to Manage Obesity

August 14, 2012

Tweet It’s summertime, and the eating is easy: A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention found that 74 percent of the adult population in the U.S. is either overweight (body mass index of 25 to 29.99) or obese (BMI of 30 or greater). This has serious health implications for individuals, of [...]

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DoL Guidance Raises Concerns for 401(k) Plans Offering Self-Directed Brokerage Options

July 16, 2012

Tweet On August 30, 2012, all defined contribution plan sponsors must provide fee and expense information to their plan’s participants under the new participant-level fee disclosures required by ERISA 404(a)(5). To clarify plan sponsors’ obligations, the United States Department of Labor (DoL) recently issued Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2012-02, which provides question-and-answer guidance. Possibly the [...]

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Secret Strategies of Workforce Wellness Design

July 5, 2012

Tweet Dr. Ian Chuang, medical director for the Lockton Benefits Group, made the following observation about workforce wellness strategy at most organizations: “If all we had to do was provide information, then we wouldn’t have any smokers, and we’d all be at the gym every night.” I think most of us would agree. You would [...]

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Anticipating the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Health Reform

June 14, 2012

Tweet We’re only days away from one of the most important U.S. Supreme Court decisions on health care in decades, and our Lockton Health Reform Advisory Practice has distributed an important advisory I wanted to pass on to you. The constitutionality of the health reform law’s individual mandate—the provision requiring virtually all Americans to obtain [...]

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Health Risk Management: “Show Me the Data!”

June 11, 2012

Tweet William Edwards Deming, the American statistician, author, and consultant famous for contributions to Japanese industry in the 1950s, once stated: “In God we trust, all others bring data.” Deming was talking about manufacturing processes. But at Lockton, we think the same principle applies when a client comes to us for help in designing an [...]

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