With healthcare costs rising, employees are expected to be more accountable for maintaining their own health and monitoring their expenses, says Aon Hewitt. According to the consulting firm, overall U.S. healthcare costs are expected to rise 7% in 2012 to US$10,475 per employee, compared with US$9,792 per employee in 2011. While employers will likely continue […]
If you want to reduce benefits costs and get the best ROI from your employee wellness program, implement participation incentives and automation. That’s the finding from a study by bswift, a U.S. software provider for employee benefits administration. The report, 2011 Wellness and Benefits Administration Benchmarking Study, surveyed 150 companies, and found that of those […]
Watch this video For benefits plan sponsors worried about the increasing costs of their plans, the legislation regarding generic drug price reductions (currently implemented in five provinces) may seem like a saving grace. But not so fast, warns Shawn O’Brien, senior consultant, health and benefits, with Aon Hewitt. He warns that the savings might not […]
Early responses from a Mercer survey suggest the average growth in U.S. health benefits costs will slow to 5.4% in 2012, the smallest increase since 1997. However, cost growth remains well above both general inflation and growth in workers’ earnings. While this increase reflects cost-cutting changes employers plan to make to their benefits programs, such as […]
There has been tremendous focus in recent years on advancements in insurer technology in areas such as employee self-service, online reporting, e-claims and Web-based administration systems. For an industry that has historically been slow to embrace technology, there has now been a significant amount of catch-up in the last three to five years. But are […]
American employers are shifting costs to employees, consolidating plan choices, emphasizing account-based plans and requiring employees to do more in order to receive incentives, according to experts at Towers Watson. “Unlike the last few years when many employees saw significant increases in co-payments, deductibles and coinsurance, 2012 looks like a year when we will start […]
Watch this video Mike Sullivan, president of Cubic Health, talks about his unique experience working with State Farm Insurance, as the organization set out to better manage its benefits plan. Sullivan says that State Farm’s cross-border structure—Canadian benefits are managed by the company’s U.S. corporate head office in conjunction with its Canadian HR team—and proactive […]
It’s hard to believe the wave of drug reforms swept past only a year ago. Judging from early insights, it doesn’t appear the landscape has been altered to any meaningful degree for plan sponsors. In recent weeks, Cubic Health researched more than 19,900,000 prescription drug claims across Canada from April 1, 2009, to March 31, […]
With global markets in turmoil and renewed fears of a global economic recession, one might expect that Canadian companies would be tightening their purse strings. This does not appear to be the case when it comes to salary budgets for 2012, according to a Morneau Shepell survey. On average, respondents said they were planning salary […]
From the state of the economy to the implementation of drug reform legislation and prolific genericization of branded products, there has been much speculation about the impact that biologic drugs will have on private plans. Less than five years ago, most of this discussion took place in the future tense. Long development times in the […]