Health Net News

April 2012 Page 1:

Retirement Accounts Begin Rebound

The 2008 stock market crash wiped out trillions of dollars in retirement accounts before the market bottomed out in the first quarter of 2009. Retirement accounts had lost about $2.7 trillion, 31 percent of their peak 2007 value. With the market rally of the two consecutive quarters, retirement account balances are steadily increasing once again. At the end of the first quarter of 2012, retirement account balances reached $9.2 trillion, their highest level ever, just 3 percent below their peak when adjusted for inflation, but investors have lost four years of growth. This information prepared by Barbara A. Butrica of the Urban Institute, and included in Retirement Policy.org can be viewed in a graph compiled in April 2012, by clicking here: Read more:

Are Retirement Accounts Rebounding Is CEO Pay Over Par Insurers Playing Games Breakfast and Diabetes Risk Top 5 Compliance Concerns Pensions Underfunded Quick Tips for the Workplace

Time to Comply with New Retirement Plan Fee Disclosure Regulations

Starting July 1, 2012, covered service providers for ERISA pension and 401(k) plans must provide plan fiduciaries with written information on fees and expenses reasonably in advance of the date the contract is entered into, extended or renewed. For contracts or arrangements entered into before July 1, 2012, covered service providers must provide the required information to the responsible fiduciary before that date. In other words, plan fiduciaries need to make sure they have received written fee disclosures from existing plan vendors before July 1. Read more:

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Inherited IRAs: a Sweet Deal

Inherited individual retirement accounts made news earlier this year when the Senate Finance Committee proposed to make heirs empty them within five years of the benefactor's death. Trust tangles: M.D. Anderson, a tax preparer in Chandler, Ariz., has worked on so many inherited IRA snafus that he set up a website to chronicle the morass, titled InheritedIRAHell.com. One of the most common problems involves how they intersect with trusts. Many people who set up plain-vanilla living trusts, often marketed as a way to avoid probate, name the trust as the IRA beneficiary. But a trust isn't a person, and has no life expectancy, so it can't take advantage of the opportunity to stretch withdrawals across decades. There is a potential fix Read more:

Your Health Insurer Wants to Play Games with You

Your health insurer wants to play games with youand they might involve actual prizes. As insurers try to get members to take better care of themselves, they are turning to tactics from the world of digital gaming. They're using methods including team competitions forged through online communities, virtual and real-world rewards for those who make moves to improve their health and the potential for raffle-style prizes. In addition, they're working with games for consoles such as Microsoft's Xbox Kinect that involve physical activity. These moves come as insurers are under pressure to show they can bring down costs by improving consumers' day-to-day health. They also want to offer features that appeal to individuals buying their own insurance, a group slated to grow sharply in 2014 if the federal health overhaul moves forward. Anna Wilde Mathews, writing in The Wall Street Journal states, The idea behind gaming is to tap into the same motivations that draw people into online games such as FarmVille, as well as the love of a chance at prizes that sells lottery tickets. Read more:

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Quick Tips: Does Your Blog Represent who you are today?
Ask yourself: If your boss evaluated your job performance the way you evaluate your companys blog, would you be happy with that system? Read more:

Skipping Breakfast Increase Risk for Diabetes in Men

Data on about 30,000 men showed that those who regularly skipped breakfast were 21% more likely to develop diabetes, despite having a healthy diet and body weight, than those who do not skip their morning meals. The findings appear in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study discovered that missing out on food first thing in the morning increases a man's chances of getting the disease by more than 20 percent compared to men who routinely eat after waking up in the morning, the Daily Mail reported. The latest results, from a major investigation conducted by Harvard School of Public Medicine, involving about 29,206 men, offer the strongest evidence yet that it can reduce the risk of diabetes. They also show that even men, who are not overweight and may have a reasonably healthy diet the rest of the time, could still be at risk if they miss breakfast. The study - published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition - found that those who hardly ever had breakfast had a 21 percent increase in risk compared to those who did. Read more:

Social Media
How are you advocating for social media adoption within your organization? Read More:

Top 5 HR Compliance Concerns for Small Business

Small and medium sized companies spend a lot of time focusing on core business issues, but they may overlook one of the most potentially serious and costly issues regulatory compliance. How do you know what issues to look for in order to protect the company? Download this must-read paper that discusses the top 5 HR compliance issues. Read more:

5 ways to promote a culture of smart thinking

Here are five things you can do to get the ball rolling toward a smarter organization. Read More:

Union Pensions Underfunded by $369 Billion

The hole in the pension plans of US labour unions now stands at $369 billion Credit Suisse calculated with the aid of new reporting standards. This raises the prospect of higher pension contributions for employers and deteriorating industrial relations. Multi-employer pension schemes, managed by trade unions on behalf of members working for many different employers, are now just 52 per cent funded, the bank calculates with most of the burden to close this gap likely to fall on small and midsize companies. In an article by Dan McCrum and Ajay Makan on ft.com, the article states Credit Suisse identifies seven large companies in the S&P, including Safeway and UPS, where the pension liability is a significant proportion of their market capitalisation. More than 10m people are covered by such multi-employer schemes with contribution rates typically set by the collective bargaining agreements that cover pay, benefits and working conditions. The Financial Accounting Standards Board, which regulates reporting of US pensions, now requires companies to disclose more details about their involvement with such plans in their regulatory findings The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures US pension schemes, estimates that at the start of 2009, according the most recent figures published multiemployer plans were 48 per cent funded, with $331bn of assets to fund $686bn of liabilities. Read more:

Beware of the power of negative events at work

When we analyzed the nearly 12,000 daily diaries we had collected from these people during their projects, we made two key discoveries. Read more:

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