By Danielle Capilla, Chief Compliance Officer at United Benefit Advisors The Supreme Court has granted the petition in Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, a case centered on the issue of whether the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) preempts Vermont’s health care database law as it was applied to a third-party administrator […]
By Michael Humphrey, MLHR, Sr. Employee Benefits Advisor at The Wilson Agency A UBA Partner Firm In last week’s blog, we explained the different types of stop-loss insurance. This week we will go over another important aspect of stop-loss: contract periods. Stop-loss contract periods are perhaps the most complicated aspect of understanding how stop-loss insurance […]
Posted by: Bill Olson United Benefit Advisors Health Plan Survey Finds Higher HSA Contributions Correlates to Increased Enrollment in High Deductible Health Plans In 2014, employees saw a 10 percent decrease in their average single Health Savings Account (HSA) employer contribution from the previous year, from $574 in 2013 to $515 in 2014, according […]
By Elizabeth Kay, Compliance & Retention Analyst, AEIS Advisors Employers that are growing up, and are in the awkward teenage years, are about to get a big surprise, and not the good kind. When a company first opens, they are excited when they first implement their benefit plans for their handful of employees. They offer […]
By Linda Rowings, Chief Compliance Officer at United Benefit Advisors On February 13, 2015, the regulatory agencies issued an FAQ on whether supplemental health insurance coverage that provides additional categories of benefits may qualify as supplemental excepted benefits. Many provisions of PPACA do not apply to excepted health benefits. Supplemental excepted benefits are those that […]
By Linda Rowings Many employee benefit limits are automatically adjusted each year for inflation (this is often referred to as an “indexed” limit). The Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration have released a number of indexed figures for 2015. Limits of particular interest to employers include the following. For health and Section 125 […]
Posted by Linda Rowings Premium tax credits are only available to individuals who obtain health coverage through a Marketplace. A dispute has arisen as to whether the IRS has the ability to interpret PPACA to allow the subsidy to individuals who obtain coverage through any Marketplace, or whether the language of PPACA limits eligibility to […]
Posted by Linda Rowings The employer-shared responsibility (“play or payâ€) requirements do not apply to small employers and have been delayed until 2016 for most mid-sized employers. This raises the question – what exactly is included in the play or pay requirement, which a small employer may be able to ignore and that mid-size employer […]
Posted by Carol Taylor On November 6, 2014, the collective Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor (DOL) and the Treasury released three Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) directed at employer payment plans for the purchase of individual insurance. While the departments had previously released several other pieces of guidance about these arrangements, this latest […]
October 18-19, 2014 Enjoy an extraordinary walking tour of the entire Big Apple. We’ll go up and down the island of Manhattan, through the Upper West and East Sides, Greenwich Village, SoHo, and Chinatown. You’ll see legendary Central Park, Rockefeller Center, and Radio City Music Hall, and take in stunning views of Manhattan as we […]