Pension Consultants/ Administrators
Leading Northern NJ Actuarial Firm
in NJ, NY

Administrator
Continental Benefits Group, Inc.
in NJ

Retirement Plan Administrator II
Fulton Financial Advisors
in PA

Communications Consultant Director
AIG
in ANY STATE

Implementation Partner
Lincoln Financial Group
in ANY STATE

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Correcting Retirement Plan Mistakes - Summer 2015 Updates
RECORDED
(IRS [Internal Revenue Service])

Benefits for Same-Sex Spouses and Domestic Partners: Impacts From the Supreme Court and EEOC
RECORDED
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)

fi360 Fiduciary Talk: Public Officials: Fiduciary or Not?
RECORDED
(fi360)

CEO Pay Ratio Rules Are Out — What Companies Need to Do Now
September 17, 2015 WEBCAST
(Towers Watson)

Missing Participants, Uncashed Checks and Fiduciary Updates
September 30, 2015 in NY
(ASPPA Benefits Council [ABC] of New York)

Making Plan Committee Meetings Truly Work – Workshopping Real Problems with Real Solutions
October 6, 2015 WEBCAST
(EACH Enterprise)

Retirement Plan Insights Seminar
November 10, 2015 in NV
(McKay Hochman Co., Inc.)

View All Webcasts and Conferences

[Official Guidance]

2015 Instructions for IRS Form 1095-A, Health Insurance Marketplace Statement (PDF)
"Form 1095-A is used to report certain information to the IRS about individuals who enroll in a qualified health plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace. Form 1095-A is also furnished to individuals to allow them to take the premium tax credit, to reconcile the credit on their returns with advance payments of the premium tax credit (advance credit payments), and to file an accurate tax return." [Also see 2015 IRS Form 1095-A.] (Internal Revenue Service [IRS])  

[Advert.]

Register for NBCH's 20th Annual Conference, Nov. 16-18 in Dallas

This must-attend event convenes employers, health plans, providers, business health coalitions and other key stakeholders focused on the future of health care and benefits. Free admission for employers that are members of an NBCH coalition. Join us.

[Guidance Overview]

Insurers Receive Limited Extension for SBC Compliance
"The extension is limited in the following ways: It applies only to the requirement to make group certificates of coverage accessible online, and does not apply to any other requirements under the SBC final regulations. Insurers must: [1] still provide SBCs under the timeframes provided in the final regulations; [2] provide on SBCs the web address where the group certificate of coverage documents will be available by November 1, 2015; and [3] include language on the web page referenced on the SBCs indicating that the documents will be accessible on November 1, 2015." (Practical Law Company)  

[Guidance Overview]

Labor Day Executive Order: Federal Contractors Must Provide Paid Leave
"[P]aid leave benefits required by the new executive order do not count toward any fringe benefits requirements included in federal contracts.... Excluding the new paid leave means that a contractor already providing paid leave that counts against a fringe benefit requirement must provide additional paid leave to meet the new paid leave requirement." (Lockton)  

Soliciting Employees' Social Security Numbers for ACA Information Reporting Requirements
"Many employers and health plans are sending SSN solicitations to comply with the 6055/6056 information reporting requirements.... [T]he SSN solicitation regulations do require the $50 penalty language to be included in a written solicitation, and therefore including such statement in the SSN solicitation letter is correct, regardless of whether the IRS in fact would apply the penalty. Further, if an employer or health plan excludes such statement from a SSN solicitation, the IRS could claim the SSN solicitation was not valid." (Kilpatrick Townsend)  

How Would UAW Pooled Health Care Benefits Get Into Gear?
"The United Auto Workers recently proposed to the Ford Motor Co. that health care benefits be pooled for about 295,000 of the company's union and nonunion workers -- a model that could potentially be duplicated for its two chief domestic competitors.... The tricky part would be determining how to handle the totally different benefits that union and nonunion employees receive.... Despite leveraging the tremendous purchasing power of UAW members ... union and management still would have to find a way for their generous health benefits package to not trigger the Affordable Care Act's Cadillac tax in 2018." (Employee Benefit News)  

[Advert.]

Changes to Cafeteria Plans: What You Need to Know to Prepare

September 22 -- This timely topic will help persons responsible for cafeteria plan administration and compliance understand the foundational requirements applicable to every cafeteria plan and inform them of how the landscape is rapidly changing. BenefitsLink discount.

Text of Federal District Court Case Prohibiting HHS from Imposing $100/Day Penalty on Certain Sales of Fixed Indemnity Health Plans
14 pages. "Plaintiffs ... sell insurance products known as 'fixed indemnity plans' ... [D]efendants issued a rule that bars plaintiffs from selling fixed indemnity plans to individual consumers unless those consumers certify that they have 'minimum essential coverage' under the [ACA].... [T]he Court will grant plaintiffs' motion for a permanent injunction and deny defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.... [N]o matter what 'fixed indemnity insurance' means at its margins, any attempt to define that phrase [in a regulation] in a way that imports wholly foreign concepts is not an act of definition as this Court understands it." [Central United Life, Inc. v. Burwell, No 14-1954 (D.D.C. Sept. 11, 2015)] (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia)  

When Does an ERISA Claimant Get to 'Augment' the Administrative Record?
"[J]udicial review of ERISA claims generally will be limited to the administrative record considered by the claim administrator. But the courts will allow claimants to augment the record if ERISA claims procedure was not followed.... And courts might conclude that failing to make an [independent medical examiner's] report (obtained and relied on during the appeal process) available to claimant for review and comment violates ERISA claims procedure." [Yancy v. United of Omaha Life Ins. Co., No. 2:14-cv-09803 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 25, 2015)] (Lane Powell PC)  

2016 Segal Health Plan Cost Trend Survey (PDF)
"Medical trends are projected to range from a low of 6.8 percent for HMOs to a high of 9.9 percent for FFS plans. For the most common plan types offered -- open-access PPO/POS plans and HMOs -- trend rates are projected to vary by about 1 percentage point across product types.... The trend rate for prescription drug carve-out coverage for actives and retirees under age 65 is expected to increase significantly in 2016 to a rate of 11.3 percent.... The projected trend for hospital services is 8.2 percent for 2016, which is slightly higher than the projected trend for 2015. The projected trend for physician services is 5.5 percent for 2016, which is a modest reduction from the projected trend for 2015." (Segal Consulting)  

As 'Grandmothering' Expires, Employer-Sponsored Health Plans See Proposed Renewal Rates of 11 Percent in 2015
"Employers in states that allowed 'grandmothering' -- the extension of non-ACA-compliant plans -- are now seeing proposed health plan rate increases of 11 percent, on average, according to the 2015 United Benefit Advisors Health Plan Survey. Many employers, particularly small to mid-size, are still delaying the effects of the [ACA] ... On average, employers this year saw only a modest 2.4 percent increase in annual health plan cost per employee. 'These delay tactics continue a trend of employers avoiding becoming ACA-compliant, but relief runs out starting next year and permanently ends in late 2017 ... Small employers, in particular, need to stay aware of the costs under a compliant plan heading into 2018 and the potential for exceeding the thresholds for the Cadillac Tax.' " (United Benefit Advisors)  

Playing the Pharmacy Game
"Your pricing may seem clear to you if you agree with the PBM to pricing of AWP (Average Wholesale Price) minus 17%, but again no -- it depends on many factors including which pricing list is used and how often it is updated. Mail order drug pricing, where a PBM may bulk purchase and repackage smaller doses, is another area for concern." (Frenkel Benefits)  

President Issues Labor Day Executive Order Requiring Federal Contractors to Provide Paid Sick Leave
"Covered employers in jurisdictions that already mandate some form of paid sick leave will face the daunting task of creating paid leave policies that meet potentially conflicting leave mandates and/or attempting to integrate the new leave mandates into existing policies." (Ballard Spahr LLP)  

Reactions to New Paid Leave Requirement
" 'Many employers have no objection to providing their employees with paid sick leave and, in fact, have been doing so voluntarily for years,' [said] Ann Marie Zaletel, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Seyfarth Shaw. 'Unfortunately, as a result of the scattershot implementation of numerous paid-sick-leave laws and municipal ordinances across the country, national employers who attempt to comply fully with paid-sick-leave requirements nonetheless may face liability and 'gotcha' lawsuits for unknowingly violating a specific technical requirement of one ordinance or another, even where the paid-sick-leave policy overall is more generous than what applicable law requires.' " (Society for Human Resource Management [SHRM])  

[Opinion]

Health Plan Mergers: Clash of Lobbying Titans
"Anthem's take-over of Cigna and Aetna's take-over of Humana continue to be viewed as highly risky, while Centene's take-over of HealthNet is viewed as almost certain to take place as announced.... Recognizing the need to respond with force, the insurers have been ramping up their lobbying investment significantly: ... if the deliberations drag into the third quarter of 2016, it is easy to anticipate this hot potato being tossed around by the candidates as they struggle with the challenge of health reform, post-Obamacare." (National Center for Policy Analysis Health Policy Blog)  

[Opinion]

Obamacare Enrollment Tumbles as Double-Digit Price Hikes Loom
"In its latest enrollment report, [CMS] says 9.9 million were still enrolled in ObamaCare exchange plans. That's almost 2 million fewer than the administration claimed in the spring, when it bragged that 11.7 million had signed up, and way below [CBO's] earlier forecast of 13 million.... In state after state, insurance commissioners are approving huge rate hikes, based on the fact that the people who've signed up for ObamaCare are older and sicker than insurers hoped.... The CBO expects 21 million will enroll in the Obama-Care exchanges next year. That's increasingly looking like a pipe dream." (Investor's Business Daily)  

Collaborative and Retirement PlanVision Partner to Provide Actionable Insight to Advisors
Infinata

SOA Names Jeremy Brown as President-Elect
Society of Actuaries

Betterment Announces New 401(k) Offering for Employers
Betterment

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