Benefits Selling Magazine October 2011

Are brokers just whistling past the graveyard?

By By Benefits Selling Staff

Despite lingering health reform uncertainty and a still-sluggish economy, brokers remain oddly optimistic about their own individual futures but worried about the industry.

Why the mandate isn’t the problem

By Denis Storey

The long, trudging march of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act toward the U.S. Supreme Court is nearing the end, of the road, as court after court clash over the constitutionality of the landmark legislation.

States can learn health savings from Canada

By Kathryn Mayer

Doctors in the United States spend almost four times more on health insurance administrative costs than their neighbors up north, according to new data.

Future rebound for disability income market?

By Kathryn Mayer

Individual disability income market’s combined premiums dropped for the second consecutive year as a result of poor economic conditions. But the drop from 2009 to 2010 was significantly lower than the previous year signaling future sales may be on the rebound.

Health care industry insists ‘significant’ cost rises coming

By Kathryn Mayer

A new survey reveals costs will rise significantly with health care reform, but will be balanced with increased access to care and new organizational efficiencies that will improve patients’ quality of care.

Bay State premiums highest in nation

By Kathryn Mayer

The national average individual market health insurance premium per person, per month is $215. In Massachusetts it's $400.

Can brokers predict the future?

By Bonnie Brazzell , Gil Lowerre

The voluntary business is an important economic bellwether. It sounds plausible given that these are discretionary financial product purchases by large numbers of consumers.

Big clients mean big creativity

By Nathan Solheim

Sure, there’s real money—and real challenge—involved in selling products to the big guys in the business. But there can be real benefits (so to speak).

The CDHC benefit

By Anne Carpenter

Do your clients know it’s the best way to rein in health care costs?

4 pillars of workplace health

By Michael Klachefsky

Four keys to an absence and disability management program that actually work

Imagine life with flying cars

By Marty Traynor

Imagine what the world of benefits will be like in 35 years, in 2046, when some begin hitting 100. The real future will be strange and a lot more complicated.

Any volunteers?

By Elana D’Arciprete

How voluntary benefits can help your agency offset lost income

Voluntary surveys show light near the end

By Kathryn Mayer

Despite sales being down, some brokers say voluntary benefits are posing themselves for future growth.

How to answer stupid questions

By By Eric Johnson

It’s pretty clear that whoever said “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” never worked in the insurance industry.

Do rules help consumers or create more paperwork?

By Marty Trussell

Becoming a good health care consumer may get a bit easier for some if new proposed rules from the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury go into effect next year as planned.

Feeling good vs. being healthy

By Sharon Alt

Though feeling good and being healthy sounds closely related, for too many Americans there is a vast difference.

The football-broker connection

By Alan Katz

Producers too often run their business without letting their teammates know what’s important. Everyone may have a general sense of the mission, but not on what they need to do to make it happen.

What I’ve learned

By Interview by Denis Storey

Larry Gordon, Atlantic Risk Management Corp., Columbia, Md.

EAP source list

By Charlene Harris