The RISQ RECAP:
April 24th – April 28th, 2023
Each week, you’ll find specially curated news articles to keep you up to date on the ever-evolving world of insurance and risk management. The articles are divided out between items relevant to Property & Casualty, Employee Benefits/Human Resources, and Compliance. We’ve included brief summaries of each item as well as a link to the original articles.
PROPERTY & CASUALTY
Q1 Net Income Up 21% at The Hartford but Personal Lines Unprofitable
“The Hartford Financial Services reported first quarter 2023 net income of $535 million, nearly a 21% increase over $443 million a year ago. In the company’s property/casualty segments, results were carried by net income of $421 million in commercial lines — offsetting a loss of $1 million in personal lines during the first three months. A year ago, Q1 net income in commercial was $383 million and $77 million in personal.” Full Article
– Insurance Journal
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS, HUMAN RESOURCES, & COMPLIANCE
Courts Continue to Scrutinize ERISA Health Plan Benefit Denial Letters “In asking the administrator to ensure the denial letters accurately reflect the administrator record, the court, is requiring the administrator to refrain from standard, stock language and draft a more personalized explanation for denying benefits.” Full Article – Troutman Pepper, via Lexology
The Disconnect: More View Health Savings Accounts as Investment Accounts Than Use Them This Way “The majority (62 percent) of health savings account (HSA) accountholders reported that they are using the account to pay for out-of-pocket expenses. And most (69 percent) viewed the HSA as a savings account.” Full Article – Employee Benefit Research Institute [EBRI]
New Guidance on Gag Clause Attestation “To ensure compliance with the Gag Clause Prohibition, plans must annually submit an attestation of compliance with the law to the Departments. The Departments have now launched a website for submitting attestations and issued instructions, a system user manual, and a Reporting Entity Excel Template for plans and issuers to submit the required Compliance Attestation.” Full Article – Seyfarth Shaw LLP
Court Rejects Mental Health Parity Claim for Wilderness Therapy Coverage Denial “Noting that a successful MHPAEA claim requires a participant to plead facts showing a disparity in the plan’s treatment of MH/ SUD and medical/surgical benefits, the court concluded that the participant’s allegation was unsupported and contradicted plan language expressly applying the exclusion to both types of benefits.” Full Article – Thomson Reuters/EBIA
IRS Clarifies Ability to Reimburse Certain Programs Under HSAs, FSAs and HRAs “Programs to treat a drug-related substance use disorder, programs to treat an alcohol use disorder, and smoking cessation programs qualify as medical care because the programs are considered treatment for a disease. However, therapy, nutritional counseling, and weight-loss programs will only be considered medical care if used to treat a specific disease (e.g. obesity). Programs for general health or wellbeing will not qualify as medical care.” Full Article – Foley & Lardner LLP
Departments Issue Guidance on Preventive Services Under the ACA Following the Braidwood Decision “Preventive care requirements receiving an A or B rating from the USPSTF before March 23, 2010, are not affected by the ruling, which means plans and issuers must still cover those preventive care services without cost-sharing. FAQs Part 59 clarifies the Braidwood decision’s effect on the high deductible health plan (HDHP) preventive care deductible safe harbor.” Full Article – Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP
STATE & INTERNATIONAL COMPLIANCE
In addition to the RISQ Review, RISQ Consulting also provides a resource that features changes and updates to State and International Compliance measures. We’ve included brief summaries of each item below, and also provided links to the original articles if you’d like to read further.
Columbus, Ohio Prohibits Asking Applicants Their Salary History “Recently, the City of Columbus joined a growing number of states and municipalities that have passed laws prohibiting employers from inquiring into a job applicant’s salary history. In Ohio, Toledo and Cincinnati currently have such ordinances.” Full Article – Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease LLPOHIO
Pennsylvania Court Holds Employer Must Reimburse Out-of-Pocket Costs for Medical Marijuana “A Pennsylvania Court held that an employer violated the state Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA) by refusing to reimburse an employee for out-of- pocket medical marijuana expenses related to a workplace injury.” Full Article – Jackson Lewis P.C.PENNSYLVANIA
New York State Releases Updated Model Sexual Harassment Prevention Policy and Training “The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) has released its long- awaited updated model sexual harassment prevention policy that addresses issues such as gender identity, remote work, and bystander intervention.” Full Article – Proskauer Rose LLPNEW YORK
Colorado’s Pay Transparency Laws “Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (“EPEWA”) requires employers to include compensation and benefits information in all job postings and notifications of promotional opportunities. The EPEWA covers all employers, public or private, that employ at least one person in Colorado. Employees of covered employers must also comply with the pay transparency requirements of the EPEWA.” Full Article – Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLPCOLORADO
California Seeks to Ban Most Criminal Background Checks “California legislators met on April 11, 2023 to discuss a proposed overhaul of employment-related criminal background checks. Simply put, if the Fair Chance Act of 2023 (SB 809) is passed into law, California will have the most restrictive criminal background check law in the country, and will significantly limit the way California employers can vet applicants for employment.” Full Article – Baker & McKenzie LLPCALIFORNIA
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The 4 Es (no, 5 Es) to Organizational Success
By Andrew Kupperman, Employer Services and Workforce Technology Consultant
If you’ve watched an organizational effectiveness related webinar in the last 5 or 6 years, you’ve undoubtedly come across one of the terms I wanted to talk about in this blog post. But the one thing that’s likely lacking in whatever webinar you watched, is how these terms relate to each other to provide a bigger picture in how you can truly lead an effective organization. My goal in this blog post is to better define these terms and help you understand how they relate and flow between one another.
Engagement
The first term, which has become a nauseating buzz word in business, is engagement. Even before the struggles of the pandemic organizations across the globe have been trying to wrap their arms around how to engage their workforce, because they’ve been told relentlessly by business support vendors, if your employees are not engaged, they will leave. There has been a myriad of solutions presented to “engage” the workforce – gamification, innovative technology, new benefits, etc.
But one thing most organizations fail to think on and realize as part of this process is what engagement really means to an organization. Engagement is something that is subjective, and defined by the organization, not employees. Most organizations liken engagement to the sense that an employee is keyed into the work they’re doing, and maybe even going above and beyond the duties and tasks laid out in their job description. I’ve also seen some organizations define an engaged employee as one who kind of acts like a robot, but I also know most organizations don’t intend it to be characterized that way.
Experience
Moving on to the next E, one of the reasons why organizations might struggle with engagement is because they fail to understand the experience they create for their workforce, which can shape how engaged (remember, as defined by the organization) an employee may end up being. Often organizations think providing a new platform or benefit is the way to shape a better experience, but experience is so much more than the tools and benefits you provide your workforce. Experience also includes (but not exclusive to) things like culture, leadership, relationship with a direct supervisor, interaction with other team members, and training. Everything someone encounters during (or even outside) the hours of work can shape an employee’s experience. Even something like texting an employee after hours plays into their experience. Not knowing the experiences employees have while working for an organization puts the organization at a disadvantage in understanding what an ideal engaged employee looks and feels like.
Expectations
This brings me to the next E, expectations. Most organizations want their employees to have a good experience while they are working for them. Good employee experiences lead to good client experiences, which leads to organizational growth and positive branding. Setting clear and visible expectations is the critical link between engagement and experience. In doing so, you are providing a roadmap for the employee to understand what their experience is going to look like, as well as how expect an employee to engage in the work that is being done at the organization.
Clear expectations also help when something goes wrong, which despite all efforts to set clear expectations, will happen from time to time. Expectations can let the employee know if something goes wrong or wasn’t supposed to happen, that there is way for the employee or the organization to recognize what went wrong (policies and procedures 😊), and how the employee and organization are going to engage in correcting it. This creates trust between an employee and the organization and will hopefully lead to mitigating the employee falling out of engagement, or even worse, making the decision to leave the organization.
Empowerment
So far we’ve learned that setting clear expectations can lead to better experiences, which results in more engaged workforce. This type of environment can foster the next E, empowerment. Truly engaged employees who are trusted and reciprocate that trust are imbued with a sense of empowerment to do better. Through clear expectations and good experiences, psychological safety is created within an organization where employees aren’t afraid to speak up when they see something that can be done a different and better way. Who wouldn’t want to work for an organization where you are empowered to make the work you and your coworkers are engaged with continuously better? An entire workforce of truly empowered workers sounds like a team of superheroes for an organization.
Employees
To the tile of this blog’s point, I’ve talked about the 4 Es, but really there are 5. The last E is employees. Remember, employees are not just engaged robots. The experiences you provide them impacts their entire lives. They are there to help the organization, so setting clear expectations will let them know how they can do that. And lastly, everyone should have a sense of empowerment in whatever they do, to make it a little bit better. This will truly create an effective organization.
- Published in Blog
The RISQ RECAP:
April 17th – April 21st, 2023
Each week, you’ll find specially curated news articles to keep you up to date on the ever-evolving world of insurance and risk management. The articles are divided out between items relevant to Property & Casualty, Employee Benefits/Human Resources, and Compliance. We’ve included brief summaries of each item as well as a link to the original articles.
PROPERTY & CASUALTY
Viewpoint: D&O Market Conundrum — Softening Rates With Rising Claims Severity
“An uncertain economic landscape leading to a rise in claims, decreasing rates, and proposed US Securities and Exchange Commission regulations on environmental, social and governance disclosures (ESG) are just some of the challenges facing directors and officers liability insurance. AmTrust EXEC claims team members Dan Beatty and Erin Zimmerman look at key issues and trends in the sector.” Full Article
– Insurance Journal
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS, HUMAN RESOURCES, & COMPLIANCE
DOJ Continues Criminal Labor Antitrust Enforcement Despite Recent Prosecution Setbacks “With yet another criminal wage-fixing indictment filed this week, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) signaled its continued commitment to prosecuting anticompetitive conduct affecting the U.S. labor markets, including within the health care industry.” Full Article – Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman PC
The Rising Importance of Trade Secret Protection in the Coming Era of Non-Compete Ban: Two Steps Your Business Needs to Take Now “To become and remain competitive in virtually any industry, businesses develop, execute, and hone strategies to win over and keep customers. These strategies become critical operational and business information. To keep this information from falling into competitors’ hands, businesses rely on several tools.” Full Article – Kane Russell Coleman Logan PC
The Speak Out Act: What Employers Need to Know “Employers should be aware of and immediately take measures to comply with the Speak Out Act, which took effect on December 7, 2022. The Act prohibits nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and nondisparagement agreements designed to prevent current and former employees from discussing sexual harassment and assault.” Full Article – Hall Benefits Law, LLC
Pay Transparency Goes Primetime: Sweeping New Federal Legislation Proposed in Congress “New proposed legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives would require all employers nationwide – regardless of size or number of employees – to include the wage range in all job postings, provide wage ranges to applicants, and provide wage ranges to existing employees for their positions.” Full Article – Littler Mendelson P.C.
Workplace Violence: An Unfortunate Reality– Are you Prepared? “Mass shootings have been increasingly in the headlines in recent years, and many of these incidents have occurred in the workplace. Regardless of anyone’s politics, employers are having to face either the fear of, or the actual experience of, murder in their own offices, factories and schools. What steps should an employer take to keep their employees safe and help to ease the impact on their employees?” Full Article – Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP
Treasury Greenbook Includes Proposal to Alter Work Opportunity Tax Credit “On March 9, 2023, the U.S. Department of Treasury released the Greenbook (formally known as the General Explanation of the Administration’s Revenue Proposals) for FY 2024 to explain revenue proposals included in the Administration’s budget. One proposal is to increase the number of hours required to be worked by an individual for the employer to be eligible for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC).” Full Article – Covington & Burling LLP
STATE & INTERNATIONAL COMPLIANCE
In addition to the RISQ Review, RISQ Consulting also provides a resource that features changes and updates to State and International Compliance measures. We’ve included brief summaries of each item below, and also provided links to the original articles if you’d like to read further.
Columbus, Ohio Prohibits Asking Applicants Their Salary History “Recently, the City of Columbus joined a growing number of states and municipalities that have passed laws prohibiting employers from inquiring into a job applicant’s salary history. In Ohio, Toledo and Cincinnati currently have such ordinances.” Full Article – Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease LLPOHIO
Pennsylvania Court Holds Employer Must Reimburse Out-of-Pocket Costs for Medical Marijuana “A Pennsylvania Court held that an employer violated the state Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA) by refusing to reimburse an employee for out-of- pocket medical marijuana expenses related to a workplace injury.” Full Article – Jackson Lewis P.C.PENNSYLVANIA
New York State Releases Updated Model Sexual Harassment Prevention Policy and Training “The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) has released its long- awaited updated model sexual harassment prevention policy that addresses issues such as gender identity, remote work, and bystander intervention.” Full Article – Proskauer Rose LLPNEW YORK
Colorado’s Pay Transparency Laws “Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (“EPEWA”) requires employers to include compensation and benefits information in all job postings and notifications of promotional opportunities. The EPEWA covers all employers, public or private, that employ at least one person in Colorado. Employees of covered employers must also comply with the pay transparency requirements of the EPEWA.” Full Article – Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLPCOLORADO
California Seeks to Ban Most Criminal Background Checks “California legislators met on April 11, 2023 to discuss a proposed overhaul of employment-related criminal background checks. Simply put, if the Fair Chance Act of 2023 (SB 809) is passed into law, California will have the most restrictive criminal background check law in the country, and will significantly limit the way California employers can vet applicants for employment.” Full Article – Baker & McKenzie LLPCALIFORNIA
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Vendor Management Tips for Small Businesses
This article is from RISQ Consulting’s Zywave client portal, a resource available to all RISQ Consulting clients. Please contact your Benefits Consultant or Account Executive for more information or for help setting up your own login.
Small businesses often don’t have the resources or expertise required to conduct every necessary function. That’s where vendors come in; they provide access to expertise, products and services that help a business run. Establishing practices for managing vendors is important for small businesses’ overall success and long-term growth, but vendor management comes with its own challenges. Luckily, there are strategies small businesses like yours can implement to efficiently manage their vendor relationships in order to optimize processes.
This article explores vendor management, including its benefits, potential challenges and best practices that will aid small businesses.
What Is Vendor Management?
Overall, the purpose of vendor management is to build, maintain and strengthen relationships that are essential to an organization’s success, such as lowering costs or increasing output. Therefore, it is important to note that regardless of your small business’s vendor management practices, they require overall business discipline and coordination from different areas, such as HR, finance and leadership. This is because the key elements of successful vendor management include vendor selection, contract negotiations, onboarding, vendor performance monitoring, risk management and payment processes.
Importance of Vendor Management
Vendor management is important for several reasons, including having better vendor selection, streamlining contract management, creating strong vendor relationships, enhancing vendor performance management and creating overall better value. The end goal of vendor management is to strengthen a company’s success and overall market performance, improve efficiency and lower costs, all of which can help your business get the most value out of using vendors and achieve its short- and long-term goals.
Vendor Management Challenges
Despite the benefits to vendor management, there are challenges to consider as well. The most common vendor management challenges small businesses face include:
- Compliance risks
- Payment terms
- Data storage and security
- Reputation management
It’s crucial to have processes in place for your business to follow when working with vendors to avoid challenge-related threats. Working with vendors often includes sharing sensitive information, which puts your business at risk if you’re not careful.
Navigating challenges related to vendor management doesn’t have to be impossible. In fact, there are ways to make the process easier for your small business.
Vendor Management Best Practices
To navigate challenges and avoid risks, it’s important to develop established practices for your small business to follow when working with vendors. Consider some of the following best practices:
- Review contracts. It’s important to write formal documentation while working with vendors. This keeps both the small business and the vendor on the same page and accountable for any communication or financial transactions.
- Put all terms in writing. Put all terms and agreements between your small business and vendors in writing. This could include agreements regarding quality control, delivery times and communication expectations.
- Communicate regularly. Getting to know your vendors is essential; this means you must communicate with them on a regular basis. Respond to vendor communications quickly and address any issues in a timely manner. The more effective the communication lines are, the better the experience will be for both parties.
- Be selective. Every time a small business chooses to outsource, it has to navigate the risk of doing so. Therefore, it’s beneficial to avoid high-risk collaborations, such as vendors who process financial transactions on the organization’s behalf. It can also be advantageous to create a framework and policies that help deal with issues if they happen to occur to mitigate potential risks.
- Establish expectations. It’s important for small businesses to communicate their expectations to vendors. This means it’s important that you and the vendor are in frequent communication. Expectations can be built into the terms of the contract and mutually agreed upon before the partnership is finalized.
- Control costs. Before committing to working with a vendor, verify that the vendor’s pricing does not exceed your organization’s budget. All details pertaining to pricing, such as payment methods, billing frequency and rates, should be laid out in advance in the agreement between the vendor and the small business.
Summary
Working with vendors can be challenging, as there are a variety of moving parts for both the small business and the vendor. The way each business chooses to navigate working with vendors is unique, so what may work for one business may not be the best for another. However, by creating processes for your small business to follow when working with vendors, you can mitigate the risks you could face and establish a strong, successful vendor relationship.
For additional small business resources, reach out to RISQ Consulting today.
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Ctrl + Alt + Del
By Elva Perez, Employee Benefits Account Specialist
Ctrl + Alt + Del. This keyboard combination is crucial when you need to reset your computer at work, yet interestingly, it’s also the best way to reset another very important computer. Your brain.
Control, Alt, Delete:
- Control yourself
- Alter your thinking
- Delete negative thinking
The last blog I shared was about the 6 steps I practice in my daily life to help me find peace of mind. After practicing the steps on how to achieve inner peace, I do feel like I have become mentally stronger. I have been working for the past 13 years on living a positive peaceful life, and some of these practices have now become second nature. Yet it can be a struggle not to fall back on old ways or practices when our surroundings seem to pull us back down.
While adding those steps was beneficial, they were all just things that I needed to start doing. Things that I needed to add to my mental routine. But just adding better practices doesn’t always lead to the best result. You must also delete the poor ones. Sometimes we have to Ctrl + Alt + Del our brains to restart fresh.
The article linked below stood out to me because it wasn’t about adding to our practices. It was about identifying the behaviors we needed to free ourselves from in order to make room for the better ones. The negative practices that need to be deleted in our brains.
10 Things Mentally Strong People Give Up to Gain Inner Peace | Inc.com
I know life is not perfect and it will always be an active effort to keep my brain programed for inner peace, but you know what? I am perfectly ok with that.
- Published in Blog
The RISQ RECAP:
April 10th – April 14th, 2023
Each week, you’ll find specially curated news articles to keep you up to date on the ever-evolving world of insurance and risk management. The articles are divided out between items relevant to Property & Casualty, Employee Benefits/Human Resources, and Compliance. We’ve included brief summaries of each item as well as a link to the original articles.
PROPERTY & CASUALTY
Dog-Related Injuries Cost Insurers More Than $1 Billion in 2022
“Insurers paid out more than $1 billion in dog-related injury claims in 2022, a 28% increase over 2021 even though the number of claims decreased last year, according to the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) and State Farm. There were 17,597 dog-related injury claims in the U.S. in 2022, down from 17,989 in 2021, according to a Triple-I analysis of homeowners insurance claims data. Despite a 2.2% decline in the number of claims, the total cost of claims increased significantly—from $882 million in 2021 to $1.13 billion in 2022.” Full Article
– Insurance Journal
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS, HUMAN RESOURCES, & COMPLIANCE
CMS Updates Could Help Employers on Second Round of Drug Cost Reporting “Employers facing a June 1, 2023, deadline for 2022 prescription drug cost reporting have important new clarification on issues such as plans that cover more than one employer, average monthly premium calculations, and medical plans that carve out prescription drug benefits. That clarification and more come in updated instructions recently released by CMS.” Full Article – Ogletree Deakins
States Step in as Telehealth and Clinic Patients Get Blindsided by Hospital Fees “Along with Colorado and Connecticut, other states that have implemented or are considering limits on facility fees are Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. Those measures include collecting data on what facility fees hospitals charge, prohibiting add-on fees for telehealth, and requiring site-neutral payments for certain Medicaid services.” Full Article – Kaiser Health News
ACA Preventive Service Requirements Partially Vacated “The final judgment does not impact all of the ACA preventive service requirements. Specifically, the ACIP (immunizations/ vaccines) and the HRSA (women’s preventive care recommendations, including the contraceptive coverage requirements and preventive screenings for children) are not changed by this ruling.” Full Article – Groom Law Group
NLRB General Counsel Issues Guidance Memorandum Regarding Severance Agreements “Memorandum GC 23-05 seeks to clarify the scope of the McLaren Macomb decision, including: the types of provisions that may violate the NLRA; language that may be acceptable in light of the decision; whether the decision applies retroactively to previously executed severance agreements; and the potential applicability of the decision to supervisors.” Full Article – Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
San Francisco Employers, Do You Need to Submit an Employer Annual Report Forms by May 1st? “The HCSO applies to private and non-profit employers who employ any individual in San Francisco, and twenty or more workers inside or outside of San Francisco.” Full Article – Jackson Lewis
FAQs Anticipate End of COVID-19 National Emergency, Address Outbreak Period Extensions for COBRA and HIPAA Special Enrollment “The FAQs leave some open questions — notably, no examples address how the outbreak period’s end will affect extended deadlines for filing benefit claims, appeals, and requests for external review; express guidance would be welcomed.” Full Article – Thomson Reuters/EBIA
STATE & INTERNATIONAL COMPLIANCE
In addition to the RISQ Review, RISQ Consulting also provides a resource that features changes and updates to State and International Compliance measures. We’ve included brief summaries of each item below, and also provided links to the original articles if you’d like to read further.
Michigan Rolls Back its “Right-to-Work” Law; NLRB’s Top Lawyer Provides Post-McLaren Macomb Guidance “Michigan becomes the first state in nearly 60 years to repeal its RTW law, which was implemented in 2013 under then-Governor Rick Snyder (R). The repeal is viewed as a major victory for union organization which reached an all-time low in 2022.” Full Article – Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLPMICHIGAN
Proposed FTC Ban on Non-Competes: What Texas Business Owners Need to Know “The proposed rule, announced by the FTC in January, would generally ban the practice of non-compete agreements by making it illegal for an employer to enter these agreements, maintain existing agreements, and/or represent to a worker that they are subject to a non-compete.” Full Article – Boyar MillerTEXAS
UPDATED: The City of Los Angeles’ Fair Work Week Ordinance Will Take Effect April 1, 2023 “The Ordinance, which was unanimously passed by the Los Angeles City Council in November 2022, requires retail employers in the City of Los Angeles to provide employees at least 14 days’ advance notice of their work schedules and to compensate employees in the event of certain schedule changes.” Full Article – Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLPCALIFORNIA
Illinois Supreme Court Finds Federal Law Labor Preempts Union Members’ BIPA Claims “Walton should stop unionized employees from bringing new BIPA claims in state and federal court. Walton also forecloses unionized employees from bringing BIPA claims on a class action basis. Companies on the receiving end of a BIPA lawsuit from a current or former union member should always explore a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on preemption grounds.” Full Article – Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLPILLINOIS
Delaware’s “Freedom of Contract” Approach to Non-Compete Agreements– Even Between Sophisticated Parties in the Sale-of-Business Context– Has its Limits “Non-compete agreements have recently gained a new round of attention with the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) proposed rule that would effectively ban employers from imposing non-competes (albeit not in certain sale-of-business scenarios).” Full Article – Gibbons PCDELAWARE
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What Employers Say About the Future of Employer-sponsored Health Benefits
By Casey Kirkeby, Strategy Consultant
Employer-sponsored health benefits have faced several threats over the past few decades, but just like hard-working employees they protect, they still endure and remain the primary method of coverage today.
One of the most impactful changes has been the introduction the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI) recently published a report examining the ACA’s impact and other government health care solutions on employer-sponsored health plans. The study interviewed 26 benefits executives from various industries whose organizations covered over 1.2 million individuals and spent more than $6.5 billion on benefits in 2021. Their data reflected that both employers and employees still viewed employer-sponsored health benefits as an important feature of the employment relationship. Who would have though, right?! While this public option doesn’t guarantee ongoing success and stability, it will hopefully help shield employers from future challenges like legislative policy changes, economic difficulties and labor market shortages. Just like any good relationship, the employer/employee benefit relationship takes hard work, trust, and transparency.
As health care costs rise, employers are looking at any option to control costs. One arrangement that has been quite popular in the Lower 48 is the ICHRA (Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement). Since it’s inception in January of 2022, many employers have adopted the ICHRA, directing their employees to private exchanges so that the employee is able to make plan design decisions for themselves apart from the traditional one-size-fits-all model. There are important considerations to take into account before an employer jumps to this model and the process is still clunky, but it can be a good fit for some employers. However, employers and employees have been slow to embrace the ICHRA because it lacks control over healthcare costs and creates additional administrative burdens that the employer has to absorb.
Another survey conducted by the National Business Group on Health concluded that most employers plan to continue offering health benefits to their employees as part of their overall compensation package. Specifically, the survey found that 92% of large employers offer health benefits and expect to continue doing so in the future, with an increasing focus on virtual health and digital solutions.
Employers are always exploring different ways to control costs, such as offering high-deductible health plans, Wellness Programs, Employee Assistance Programs surrounding mental health, and incentivizing employees to use cost-effective providers. But for now, employers remain confident in their ability to provide affordable health benefits to employees as an important attraction and retention tool.
- Published in Blog
To Wage War On Work & Wage
By Kevina “Liz” Mitchell, Employee Benefits Account Specialist
Like many of the other 10 million single mothers in America, I have one beautiful princess who my life revolves around. Yet, whether we be single parents, two parent homes, or even individuals, this past year has likely affected each of our metaphorical family orbits. Once inflation took flight last year and refused to land, I was faced with a hard decision: either leave my current job (which I love) or take on a second part-time gig. Neither choice is appealing, but I have chosen the second. A) Because again, I love my job and B) because although the job market is hawt, the jobs I do qualify for either do not pay what I need, or they just seem really sus.
I do wonder when the last time the State of Alaska updated their assistance eligibility requirement was. Though I have by all accounts a respectable white-collar job, I still struggle to pay my bills, often having to choose between buying food or paying said bills. There’s no extra. The things my daughter and I were able to enjoy before this inflationary period are now unattainable because they cost money that I simply don’t have. As she grows… so do her interests. She wants to take classes that there are no funds for. Even I would like to take a class or two to grow my interests but cannot. But, according to Alaska, I make too much money. So, help is not available to me.
My remaining option then becomes to work more hours, having even less time with my little girl who needs me, and exhausting myself more than I already am. I suppose I could don a nice dress and hunt for a rich man… but I’m anemic so I don’t have the energy for that, hahaha! I do, however, think this is an opportunity for some creativity. My mother has been pestering me to start painting again. Allegedly I have a growing fanbase on JBER that would like to purchase my art pieces. I’ve also decided that this is a wonderful time to monetize my stunningly straight teeth and infectious personality via the Food & Beverage Industry.
Either way, I know I’m going to be just fine. While this isn’t how I envisioned my life going I can’t say that it’s boring. At least I have this life and the wonderful daughter within it. I’m also pretty excited about the possibilities! Especially the part where I will have no excuses to not leave my house anymore…or maybe that part was just anxiety, I don’t know. But darn it all, it’s happening, and life goes on.
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