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| Benefit Briefs |
| Employers Report Strategies to Mitigate ACA Cost Increases |
| More than 87% of employers surveyed indicated
they have taken at least one action to mitigate rising health care costs. According
to the 2014 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers by the Darla Moore School of
Business at the University of South Carolina, 78% of respondents indicated
their health insurance costs have risen (by an average of 7.73%), and 37%
reported their labor costs have increased (by an average of 5.6%) as a direct
consequence of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).Read more > |
| Employers See Health Exchanges as Viable Health Benefit |
| Twenty-eight percent of employers surveyed by
Towers Watson said they had already extensively evaluated the viability of
private exchanges for health care benefits. Nearly one in four (24%) employers
said private exchanges could provide a viable alternative for their active
full-time employees as soon as 2016, according to the 2014 Towers Watson Health
Care Changes Ahead Survey. The survey also revealed the top three factors that
would cause employers to adopt a private exchange for full-time active
employees.Read more > |
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| Industry Voices |
| Objectively, how good is your retirement plan?
Without some comparative analysis, how would you know? Doing a comparative
analysis can be a daunting task, and if there is no clear need, it’s human
nature to put it off. In Part 1 of this two-part article we hope to show you
that over-using the “snooze button” is
risky, and in Part 2 we will provide a roadmap for performing a comparative
analysis on your plan. The “if it ain’t broke…” approach is unacceptable, for
two main reasons.Read more > |
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| Market Mirror |
| Yesterday, the Dow was down 41.93 points
(0.25%) at 17,071.22, the NASDAQ slipped 6.34 points (0.14%) to 4,505.85, and
the S&P 500 lost 5.05 points (0.25%) to finish at 1,977.80. The Russell
2000 decreased by 1.43 (0.13%) to 1,117.90, and the Wilshire 5000 closed 43.66
points (0.21%) lower at 20,842.01.
On the NYSE, 3.2 billion shares changed
hands, with 1.4 declining issues for every advancing issue. On the NASDAQ, 2.8
billion shares traded, with a 1.3 to 1 ratio of decliners to advancers.
The price of the 10-year Treasury note was up 14/32,
decreasing its yield to 2.481%. The price of the 30-year Treasury bond
increased 29/32, bringing its yield down to 3.170%.
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| Rules & Regulators |
| PBGC Wants Notice of Pension Risk Transfer Moves |
| The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)
is requesting that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approve a revised
collection of information under its Payment of Premium regulations. PBGC
intends to revise the 2015 filing procedures and instructions to, among other
things, require reporting of certain undertakings to cash out or annuitize
benefits for a specified group of former employees.Read more > |
| The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee
Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) proposed a regulation that would
require electronic filing of “top hat” plan statements, as well as
apprenticeship and training plan notices. Generally, top hat plans are pension
plans for select groups of management or highly compensated employees. Under
the current law, these plans, as well as apprenticeship and training plans,
file paper statements and notices with EBSA. The proposed regulation would
revise current filing procedures to require electronic submission of these
notices and statements, but would not change current requirements for their
content.Read more > |
| IRS Adds ACA Guidance for Measuring Full-Time Employees |
| The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a
notice regarding measurement methods for purposes of the employer shared
responsibility rule under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Specifically, Notice 2014-49 describes a proposed approach to the application
of the look-back measurement method, which may be used to determine if an
employee is a full-time employee for purposes of Section 4980H of the Internal
Revenue Code, in situations in which the measurement period applicable to an
employee changes.Read more > |
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| Financial Sense |
| Why Rebalancing Retirement Plan Investments Is Important |
| Retirement savers are often presented with a
simple message on portfolio allocations: Rebalance regularly. But one
investment provider wants you to think deeply about rebalancing. Richard
Yasenchak, a senior vice president and client portfolio manager for INTECH,
says his firm has long worked to provide smarter portfolios to a variety of
institutional client types, including both defined contribution (DC) retirement
plans and traditional defined benefit (DB) pensions. He explains that INTECH
utilizes computer algorithms throughout the portfolio-building and maintenance
effort to ensure decisions are made in a “scientific and disciplined way.” The
point of the approach is to optimize the processes that may seem less important
than choosing a manager or setting the asset allocation—things like, exactly
how often should one trade back to the target weight? And how does one watch
for rising correlations in the portfolio when rebalancing?Read more > |
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| Small Talk |
| ON
THIS DATE: In 1777,
the Congress of the United States moved to York, Pennsylvania, due to advancing
British forces. In 1846, Dr. William
Morton performed a painless tooth extraction after administering ether to a
patient. In 1868, the first volume
of Louisa May Alcott’s book “Little Women” was published. In 1947, the World Series was televised
for the first time. The sponsors only paid $65,000 for the entire series
between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. In 1954, the USS Nautilus,
the world’s first nuclear submarine, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy. In 1955, 24-year-old actor James Dean was
killed in Cholame, California, when the Porsche he was driving hit a Ford Tudor
sedan at an intersection.
TUESDAY
TRIVIA: In 1842, Georgia physician Crawford Williamson
Long became the first doctor to use ether as a general anesthetic during
surgery, when he used it to remove a tumor from the neck of his patient James
M. Venable.
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| TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Before the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed, which
state first granted women the right to vote?Read more > |
| Share the good news with a friend! Pass the Dash along – and tell your
friends/associates they can sign up for their own copy.Read more > |
| News from PLANSPONSOR.com
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2014.
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