Benefits Industry News

Open enrollment can be an exceptionally complex and involved process, consuming months of valuable time and taxing your resources to the breaking point. Open Enrollment is always a hectic time of year when employees have the opportunity to change their benefit plan.

Online benefits enrollment does help organizations. It can significantly reduce the cost of running a human resource department by allowing employees to manage their benefits from the convenience of their desktop. According to Survey reports, more than 44 percent of employers used the Internet for benefits enrollment. At companies with more than 5,000 employees, the rate of usage jumps to 71 percent. Many issues contribute to the rise of online-benefits administration, one of which is the common practice of telecommuting.

According to the survey,telecommuting is up 3 percent nationally in 2002 and is expected to climb an additional 32 percent by 2005. The ideal and essential way for offsite employees to access benefits information from a remote location is through a Web-based solution. As these statistics show, employers reap rewards from online-benefits administration in straightforward ways, including reduced human resources costs, outsourcing of staff functions, and increased employee self service. However, many companies only outsource pieces of their benefits administration functions, rather than the entire process. Industry experts are of the opinion that all human resource functions will be delivered online in the near future.

With Online Benefit Enrollment Employees can easily:

• Enroll in flexible spending account (FSA) programs that help them plan for the future further creating a sense of cohesiveness and loyalty.

• Electronically enroll in a rules-based system that allows only eligible selections to be made by the enrolling employees reducing costly errors and reducing administrative time.

• Access and view/edit benefit selections from any computer during the period allowing to compare, analyze and check costs of plans.

Online Benefit Enrollment empowers the Management in:

• Reducing open enrollment cycle by deploying web based system and increasing both efficiency and effectiveness.

• Streamlining the process, save time and eliminate expensive errors by shifting to online rules-based electronic enrollment process.

• Reducing administrative workload and control costs by empowering employees to manage and update their benefits elections.

• By setting-up the entire administration approval process for employee, benefit elections prior to updating into HR and payroll reducing overall administrative time and burden.

The trend of shifting to online benefit enrollment is going to increase because of because of the advantages for both employers and employees. Employers have the rewards of employee satisfaction and efficiency can save on printing, and potentially, on call center expense.

Briefly the advantages of Online Benefits of Open Enrollment are:

• It automates the tedious benefit enrollment process.

• It allows the definition of eligibility criteria for employees who will participate in the open enrollment period.

• Selection process of real-time benefit plans to be included in open enrollment period

• Clear, simple instructions on every screen- practical online help ensures that employees quickly feel comfortable working with their own data.

Paul

Resources:

Online Electronic Benefit Open Enrollment Automation Web Software

Workforce Management HR Software

Every working individual must be aware of his or her rights as an employee. These rights may be basic employee rights as guaranteed by the Constitution or specific employment rights guaranteed by approved labor statutes.

One area of worker’s compensation rights is the just and fair provision of an employee benefits plan. This plan is actually composed of wage and non-wage benefits that a regular employee is entitled to receive from his or her employer.

Employee Benefits Plan is every employee’s handy guide about issues relating to employee benefits. The site has special focus on employment benefits plan, the financial package that puts in place a fund for the purpose of providing retirement or separation compensation and other benefits to a regular employee upon formal separation from a company after a pre-determined period of service. This type of employee compensation is probably the strongest employment benefit offer that a stable and organized company can offer its workforce.

The site also offers valuable information about other crucial aspects of an employee benefits package, such as the employee benefits insurance, employee benefits providers and employee benefits specialists that are involved in creating the benefits package. A section is also devoted to benefits plan administration, which is the process of implementing the agreed employee benefits plan structure.

All these information are crucial for readers to have a clearer understanding of how their employment benefits are structured, approved and implemented. The information will greatly help readers make informed decisions should there come a time that they need to deal with issues about their employment benefit rights.

The most affordable health coverage for families and individuals is usually group coverage offered by employers.   Larger companies have traditionally been able to offer better plans because of their larger purchasing power.  Although employers and groups are not required to do so, most Texas health insurance plans are employer-based or offered as benefits through organizations and associations, including unions, churches and professional membership groups. Employers and groups that make health insurance available to employees and members are not required by law to contribute anything toward plan member premiums, although some insurance carriers mandate that employers pay at least 50% of employee premiums.

Texas health insurance plans offered by small businesses are covered by provisions in state law and differ than those offered by larger employers. Some state-mandated benefits, for example, that must be included in large group plans, are not required to be included in plans from small businesses.  A small employer is defined as a business with at least two but no more than 50 eligible employees.  A full-time employee who works at least 30 hours a week and is not part of another group plan is considered an eligible employee. Part-time, seasonal and substitute employees are not eligible for small business health insurance.

Large employers may offer different levels of coverage for specific classes of employees, provided all employees within that class, i.e. executives, have access to the same level of coverage.  As with small businesses, coverage cannot be withheld from any group because of the health status of any employee in that group.  Self-funded Texas health insurance plans are regulated by the U.S. Department of Labor and not subject to individual state insurance laws, including the Texas Department of Insurance.  Self-funded ERISA plans can operate in more than one state simultaneously, and are usually more extensive and comprehensive than other group plans.

There are fresh reminders about the importance of identity theft protection in the worksite market.

ARAG, a major legal-insurance provider that also offers I.D. theft prevention and resolution assistance, cited two recent reports that add food for thought on this hot topic to bolster its 2009 study with Russell Research about the top 10 legal concerns for Americans.

One comes courtesy of the Federal Trade Commission, which describes credit-card fraud as the most common form of reported identity theft (17%) followed by government documents/benefits fraud (16%), phone or utilities fraud (15%) and employment fraud (13%). The other, involving Javelin Strategy and Research data, notes that the number of identity fraud victims in the U.S. spiked 12% to 11.1 million adults last year, while the total annual fraud amount rose 12.5% to $54 billion.

In addition, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation is calling attention to a rise in medical identity theft, with a troubling report that notes these thieves are often health care insiders who seek treatment under an assumed identity.

This article was used by permission from Employee Benefit News.

Audit Checklist

Are Your Benefit Plans Ready for a Government Audit?

Presenter
Peter Marathas, Esq., Compliance Director

Mark Your Calendar
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
11:00 AM

Central Daylight Time

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Chapman Schewe Benefits Consulting (CSI Benefits, Inc.) is a  member of Benefit Advisors Network (BAN). BAN offers monthly webinars to its members. The webinars  are free and are available to you.

Presenter’s Bio
Peter Marathas, Esq.; our Compliance Director, received his J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law, magna cum laude, his M.A. from Bradley University, summa cum laude, and his B.A. from Bradley University, cum laude.  Before practicing law, Peter taught business and technical writing at the University of Illinois and Bradley University and was also a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, West Africa. Peter’s expertise and extensive experience is in dealing with employee benefits, retirement plans,  welfare plans, and executive compensation arrangements.  He assists his clients  with issues arising under the various laws and regulations governing these types of arrangements including ERISA, COBRA, HIPAA, the IRS code and other federal and state laws.  Peter is a Partner in the Boston, MA offices of the highly respected firm of Proskauer Rose.  He has been recognized as one of the “Best Lawyers in America”
in the practice of employee benefits and compensation law.

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Ken Mensio, CEBS
CSI Benefits, Inc.
Chapman Schewe, Inc.
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ken@csibenefits.us