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Insurance

Is it time to encourage employees to shop for own health insurance?

01/01/2008

If employee health care costs are hitting your organization hard, consider a tactic increasingly used by employers: Encourage workers to shop for alternative insurance plans on the private market …

Caught on camera! Public employers can snoop on employees during fraud probes

01/01/2008

California has a tough statute that protects celebrities against the paparazzi. But California law doesn’t necessarily shield the privacy of public employees. Government agencies can order and conduct intrusive investigations if they suspect public employees are committing workers’ comp and benefits fraud …

Changing benefits plans? Make transition accurate, timely

01/01/2008

Benefits are increasingly expensive to provide, and sometimes employers have to make changes to remain competitive. Be aware, though, that you need to implement any benefits changes with great attention to detail. Make certain the summary plan description is accurate, and that the underlying insurance documents are also correct …

Ensure doctors are fully credentialed for workers’ comp duty

01/01/2008

If you self-insure your workers’ compensation liability or otherwise directly control how your employees go about getting treatment for work-related injuries, make sure the medical professionals involved in your employees’ care are properly licensed and meet all requirements of their licenses. Otherwise, you may face liability for the negligent mistakes of health care practitioners …

Health insurance surcharges mean you’ll pay for bad habits

01/01/2008

Starting in 2008, Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, began applying a monthly surcharge of $100 to the family health insurance premiums of workers who use tobacco or whose insured dependents do. Employees who kick the habit through the company’s smoking cessation program lose the surcharge …

Unemployment insurance tax rates to decrease in 2008

01/01/2008

Many Texas employers will see lower unemployment insurance (UI) taxes this year, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. The minimum tax rate, which 62% of Texas employers pay, decreased to 0.22% from 0.29% for the 2008 calendar year …

Collective bargaining terms mean no unemployment comp for pregnant employees

12/01/2007

Employees who must stop working at a certain point in their pregnancies because a union agreement compels the leave are not entitled to unemployment compensation in Ohio. That’s true even if the pregnant employee could physically work and would have done so if it were an option …

AK Steel uses VEBA to settle retiree health care lawsuit

12/01/2007

AK Steel settled a lawsuit with a group of retirees from its Middletown Works by transferring their health care coverage to a voluntary employees’ beneficiary association (VEBA) trust. The 4,600 retirees sued in 2006 after the company moved to cut retiree health care costs to improve its competitiveness …

Ohio Supreme Court limits ‘Voluntary abandonment’ doctrine

12/01/2007

The Ohio Supreme Court has substantially limited the “voluntary abandonment” doctrine in claims for temporary total disability compensation under the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Act. That means employers may have to pay temporary total disability payments to employees even if they were injured while breaking safety rules …

Health insurance costs up less than usual in ’07

12/01/2007

Employees will pay $150 more for medical expenses next year, predicts a new Towers Perrin survey. And that means your employees probably are more worried about the increasing costs of their health insurance than they are about being able to pay their rent, losing their jobs or becoming victims of violent crime, notes a separate survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation …