Employers are entering the second year of open enrollment taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still having an outsized impact on the process and which has changed the face of health insurance. There are a number of issues that will have an effect on health plans, including regulations and laws affecting coverage that…
Commercial property insurance rates are continuing to climb, as the segment faces a number of headwinds that have pushed claims costs to new heights. There are number of factors that are colliding, including the frequency and severity of claims from extreme weather, the cost of rebuilding, rates for commercial properties are not keeping pace with…
The IRS has announced the new affordability requirement test percentage that group health plans must comply with to conform to the Affordable Care Act. Starting in 2022, the cost of self-only group plans offered to workers by employers that are required to comply with the ACA, must not exceed 9.61% of each employee’s household income.…
You may not think of postal delays as a cost of doing business or a risk to your operations, but slower mail can pose a number of issues for timely correspondence and package deliveries. The U.S. is facing the specter of longer delivery times for first class mail, and the longer the mail has to…
With about 75% of employees in the U.S. using their own devices for work communications and productivity, businesses must implement safeguards to avoid company data from being compromised should a device be stolen, hacked or contract a virus. The BYOD (bring your own device) trend has grown as many employees have eschewed company-issued mobile devices,…
With confrontations between angry customers and employees just trying to do their jobs increasing during the COVID-19 pandemic, employers need to make sure they have policies in place to protect workers who are confronted. As well, many customer-facing companies — mainly retailers, restaurants, retail printers and entertainment venues — have seen an uptick in customers…
Many parents get a big surprise when they find out that their health insurance won’t cover their kids when they go off to college, particularly if they are out of state. The problem is that the health plan they may get through work may not have networks in the area or region. If your child…
Employers are being hit with a wave of COVID-19-related employment lawsuits, which is starting to have an effect on employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) rates and coverages. A tally by the law firm of Fisher Phillips found that as of August 2021 there had been 2,950 COVID-19-related employment lawsuits filed in the U.S. Most of…
The Biden administration has announced plans to require businesses with 100 or more employees to require their workers to be vaccinated for COVID-19 or be tested for the coronavirus on a weekly basis. The order is part of a sweeping six-part “Path Out of the Pandemic” plan, which focuses on expanding vaccinations, opening schools safely,…
In courtrooms all over the country, battles are occurring between businesses who endured COVID-19-related shutdowns and insurance companies who believe they are not obligated to reimburse them for their losses. According to the Covid Insurance Litigation Tracker from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, more than 1,800 lawsuits have been filed in state and…