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A health insurer that had laptops with personal information stolen can be sued by participants, even if they have no evidence that the thieves later misused the data, a federal appeals court ruled.
The U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) has added two more conditions to the list of early warning factors that it watches and believes may endanger the funding of single-employer defined benefit (DB) retirement plans.
Question: We provide employees the option to take a lump sum cash payment ($1,000/yr) in lieu of accepting benefits, payable in increments over each pay period. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has indicated those payments should be included in the base wage for purposes of calculating overtime (see Flores v. City […]
February brings with it a number of holidays and observances, from Groundhog Day and President’s Day in the U.S. to Valentine’s Day throughout the world. But as we celebrate love, Washington’s birthday, and everyone’s favorite groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, a national health observance goes unnoticed by most.
California’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) has made multiple attempts to reduce workers’ compensation costs to employers and to improve compensation paid to workers. One persistent obstacle to cost containment is fraud, and the DIR has poured considerable resources into combating fraudulent worker claims, premium fraud, and most recently, provider fraud. In January, the DIR […]
A plan sponsor organization is asking the Trump administration for immediate relief from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) employer reporting requirements.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on February 9 filed a notice delaying the April 10 applicability date of its rule broadening the definition of a fiduciary. The move was expected after President Donald Trump on February 3 signed a memorandum requesting the agency to postpone and re-examine the rule on investment advice.
Payments that an employer makes to an employee under a fixed indemnity health plan must be included in the employee’s taxable income, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently indicated, if the plan premiums were paid by the employer or by salary reduction under a cafeteria plan.
This article series addresses some of the most confusing real world problems surrounding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). In the last installment, we focused on FMLA leave regarding spouses who work for the same company. In this article, we’ll focus on substituting paid leave for FMLA leave.
A 2013 laptop theft led to a $3.2 million Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) penalty against a Dallas hospital, after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) determined that it had failed to address known security risks for years beforehand.