DISABILITY INSURANCE DURING A PANDEMIC Managing claims and confusion from the coronavirus By Len Strazewski It started with a bad cough and then progressed to pneumonia and then hospitalization. A hundred thousand or more failed to survive and tens of millions became unemployed. In a matter of months, the COVID-19virus grew into a pandemic, straining health systems throughout the world, and in the United States, also challenging employee benefits such
Benefits Lead
DENTAL AND VISION BENEFITS Amid the pandemic, the value placed on health insurance policies is taking on greater importance By Len Strazewski As unemployment reaches levels not seen since the Great Depression, personal incomes are falling, and employee benefits are in shambles—just as the need for health benefits is exploding. Obamacare and COBRA provide some major medical options, but vision and dental benefits may be orphaned during the crisis. John
SELF-FUNDED MEDICAL PLANS AND STOP LOSS Innovation on the front lines of cost containment By Thomas A. McCoy, CLU A self-funded medical plan represents the epitome of a partnership effort among the benefits broker, an employer and the stop-loss insurer backstopping it all. For an employer to self-fund in the face of relentlessly rising medical costs is both an opportunity and a challenge. If self-funding were not a significant opportunity,
SURVEYING THE BENEFITS LANDSCAPE Insurers adapt to the needs of today’s dynamic workforce By Thomas A. McCoy, CLU In practically every type of business, employees often describe their workplace as constantly changing. It may be because competition alters their employer’s course. Or new upper- or middle-level management personnel come on the scene. Sometimes it is technology, designed to bring personal productivity, that creates personal upheaval. One thing that doesn’t change
ACCIDENT INSURANCE GAINS MOMENTUM Carriers upgrade products to serve a widespread need By Thomas A. McCoy, CLU Voluntary insurance executives are bullish on accident insurance, and their companies are backing them up by introducing new accident product enhancements. It’s free enterprise at its best—a sales opportunity breeding competition, creating more choices and product upgrades, and better ways to serve customers. “The accident market is seeing more policies that provide greater
