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1. Medicare Part D Notice Requirements

Medicare generally requires employers that offer prescription drug coverage to Medicare-eligible individuals to satisfy two notice requirements:

1. Prior to October 15 each year, the employer must provide Medicare-eligible individuals with a Medicare Part D Creditable or Non-Creditable Coverage Notice. These notices serve to notify the individuals whether the employer-offered prescription drug coverage is “creditable” under law. Coverage is generally “creditable” if it is expected to pay, on average, as much as the standard Medicare prescription drug coverage. Click here to download model notices pertaining to this requirement.  
2. Within 60 days of the beginning of each plan year (generally March 1 for calendar-year plans), the employer must complete an online disclosure to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to report whether the coverage offered is “creditable.” Click here to complete an online disclosure.

Additional requirements may apply. Click here for more information on the Medicare Part D notice requirements.

2. Medicare Secondary Payer Requirement

When an individual is covered by both an employer-sponsored group health plan and Medicare, it can be confusing as to who should pay for the individual’s medical claims. In general, the employer-sponsored group health plan is the primary payer of these claims, while Medicare is the secondary payer. However, exceptions do apply, including for employers with less than 20 employees. For more information, please contact CMS at 1-800-MEDICARE or give us a call.  

3. Medicare Nondiscrimination Requirements

Medicare-eligible employees are generally protected against discrimination in group health insurance benefits in two ways:

1. Employers with 20 or more employees are required by law to offer workers and their spouses who are age 65 or older the same health benefits that are offered to younger employees.
2. Employers are generally prohibited from encouraging or offering incentives to individuals to enroll in Medicare instead of a group health plan. However, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has stated that offering Medicare-eligible employees a choice between either group health insurance coverage or the reimbursement of Medicare Part B premiums is generally lawful as long as the choice creates an advantageous option available only to the Medicare-eligible employees.

New Figure Marks Decrease from 2019

Under the employer shared responsibility (“pay or play”) provisions of the Affordable Care Act, applicable large employers—generally those who have 50 or more full-time employees (including full-time equivalent employees)—may be subject to a penalty if they do not offer affordable coverage that provides minimum value to their full-time employees and their dependents.
  
For plan years beginning in 2020, the Internal Revenue Service has announced that coverage will generally be considered affordable if the employee’s required contribution for the lowest-cost self-only health plan offered is 9.78% or less of his or her household income for the taxable year. For plan years beginning in 2019, the applicable percentage is 9.86%. 
 
Given that employers are unlikely to know an employee’s household income, they may use a number of safe harbors to determine affordability, including reliance on Form W-2 wages. 

U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) audits of welfare benefit plans are happening with greater frequency to every size company. Reasons for a DOL audit include:

• Complaints by welfare benefit plan participants to the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the DOL agency responsible for administering and enforcing the provisions of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
• Inaccurate or late filings of the Form 5500 Annual Report
• National enforcement initiatives investigating compliance with ERISA and the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
• Transfer of cases from the IRS to the DOL
• Random selection

This section covers the following topics to help you prevent, and be prepared for, a DOL audit:

• How To Lower the Risk of a DOL Audit
• DOL Health Plan Audit Document Request Checklist
• Top Tips for Navigating Through a DOL Health Plan Audit

Wellness programs are generally health promotion and disease prevention programs and activities offered to employees as part of an employer-sponsored group health plan. There are three main types of wellness programs:   

• Participatory wellness programs, which are generally available without regard to an individual’s health status and do not offer any reward based on satisfying a health-related standard.
• Activity-only wellness programs, which require an individual to perform or complete a health-related activity to obtain a reward.
• Outcome-based wellness programs, which require an individual to attain or maintain a specific health outcome in order to obtain a reward.

Wellness programs are subject to certain federal requirements. General compliance information for these different types of wellness programs appears below.

Participatory Wellness Programs

Participatory wellness programs offered as part of a group health plan generally must:

1. Be made available to all “similarly situated individuals.” However, the following employees can be treated as different groups of similarly situated individuals: part-time and full-time employees, employees working in different geographic locations, and employees with different dates of hire or lengths of service.
2. Not bar individuals from participating based on a health factor, including disability.
3. In accordance with HIPAA, generally protect from disclosure any individually identifiable health information collected from or created about participants in the program. Click here for more information.
4. If sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, offer reasonable accommodations that allow employees with disabilities to participate.
5. If collecting employee health information and sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, distribute an ADA Notice Regarding Wellness Program to all individuals eligible to participate. Click here for a sample ADA Notice Regarding Wellness Program.
6. If sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, ensure that the employer does not receive any information about program participants except where necessary for plan administration.

Activity-Only Wellness Programs

Activity-only wellness programs offered as part of a group health plan generally must:

1. Not bar individuals from participating based on a health factor, including disability.
2. Allow participants to obtain a reward at least once per year, and generally limit such rewards to 30% of the cost of coverage under the health plan for the employee and his or her dependents.
3. Offer a reasonable alternative standard to individuals who, due to a medical condition, are unable to satisfy the standard necessary to obtain the reward.
4. In accordance with HIPAA, generally protect from disclosure any individually identifiable health information collected from or created about participants in the wellness program. Click here for more information.
5. If sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, offer reasonable accommodations that allow employees with disabilities to participate.
6. If collecting employee health information and sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, distribute an ADA Notice Regarding Wellness Program to all individuals eligible to participate. Click here for a sample ADA Notice Regarding Wellness Program.
7. If sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, ensure that the employer does not receive any information about program participants except where necessary for plan administration.

Outcome-Based Wellness Programs

Outcome-based wellness programs offered as part of a group health plan generally must:

1. Not bar individuals from participating based on a health factor, including disability.
2. Allow participants to obtain a reward at least once per year, and generally limit such rewards to 30% of the cost of coverage under the health plan for the employee and his or her dependents.
3. Offer a reasonable alternative standard to individuals who do not meet the program’s initial standard based on a measurement, test, or screening.
4. Distribute a Wellness Program Disclosure in all plan materials that describe the program. This notice must also be furnished to any individual that fails to satisfy an outcome-based standard necessary to obtain a reward. Click here to download a model Wellness Program Disclosure.
5. In accordance with HIPAA, generally protect from disclosure any individually identifiable health information collected from or created about participants in the wellness program. Click here for more information.
6. If collecting employee health information and sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, distribute an ADA Notice Regarding Wellness Program to all individuals eligible to participate. Click here for a sample ADA Notice Regarding Wellness Program.
7. If sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, offer reasonable accommodations that allow employees with disabilities to participate.
8. If sponsored by an employer with 15 or more employees, ensure that the employer does not receive any information about program participants except where necessary for plan administration.

Additional requirements and exceptions may apply to your wellness program. For more information, click here.

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s much-maligned health care system is covering 9 out of 10 people, a fact that hasn’t stopped the 2020 presidential candidates from refighting battles about how to provide coverage, from Bernie Sanders’ call for replacing private insurance with a government plan to President Donald Trump’s pledge to erase the Affordable Care Act and start over.

The politicians are depicting a system in meltdown. The numbers point to a different story, not as dire and more nuanced.

Government surveys show that about 90% of the population has coverage , largely preserving gains from President Barack Obama’s years. Independent experts estimate that more than one-half of the roughly 30 million uninsured people in the country are eligible for health insurance through existing programs.

Lack of coverage was a growing problem in 2010 when Democrats under Obama passed his health law. Now the bigger issue seems to be that many people with insurance are struggling to pay their deductibles and copays.

“We need to have a debate about coverage and cost, and we have seen less focus on cost than we have on coverage,” said Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet. He is among the Democratic presidential candidates who favor building on the current system, not replacing it entirely, as does Sanders. “The cost issue is a huge issue for the country and for families,” Bennet said.

A report this year by the Commonwealth Fund think tank in New York found fewer uninsured Americans than in 2010 but more who are “underinsured,” a term that describes policyholders exposed to high out-of-pocket costs, when compared with their individual incomes. The report estimated 44 million Americans were underinsured in 2018, compared with 29 million in 2010 when the law was passed. That’s about a 50% increase, with the greatest jump among people with employer coverage.

“When you have 90 percent of the American people covered and they are drowning in their health care bills, what they want to hear from politicians are plans that will address their health care costs, more than plans that will cover the remaining 10 percent,” said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks the health care system. “When Democrats talk about universal coverage more than health care costs, they are playing to the dreams of activists and progressives … much less to the actual concerns of the 90 percent who have coverage today.”

Sanders’ office responds that the Vermont senator’s “Medicare for All” plan would solve both the coverage and cost problems for individual Americans. Medical care would be provided with no deductibles or copays. No one would be uninsured or underinsured.

“The simple answer is that our health care system becomes more unmanageable for more and more Americans every year,” Sanders spokesman Keane Bhatt said in a statement. “This is not a system that needs a few tweaks. This is a system that needs a complete overhaul.”

But other countries that provide coverage for all and are held up by Sanders as models for the U.S. don’t offer benefits as generous as he’s proposing. If he is elected president, there’s no way of telling how his plan would emerge from Congress, or even whether something like it could pass.

Four other 2020 Democrats are co-sponsors of Sanders’ bill: Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Trump is talking about big changes. His administration is seeking to have federal courts declare the entire Obama-era health care law unconstitutional, jeopardizing coverage for 20 million people, jettisoning protections for patients with preexisting conditions, and upending the rest of the 970-page statute, now nearly 10 years old.

The president says there’s nothing to worry about. Earlier this summer Trump told ABC News that he was working on a plan that would provide “phenomenal health care,” protect people with preexisting conditions, and would be “less expensive than ‘Obamacare’ by a lot.”

White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that the Obama law was “sold and passed on a litany of broken promises” and now “Democrats are proposing even more radical government takeovers of our health care system.”

As president-elect, Trump promised a health plan but never offered one upon taking office. Instead he backed bills from congressional Republicans, including one he called “mean” during a private meeting.

Trump says he might come out with his new plan within months, but that passing it would hinge on his getting reelected and Republicans winning back the House in 2020 while keeping control of the Senate.

That’s a bit of political deja vu.

Republicans controlled Washington back in 2017 when Trump, then-Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tried for months to repeal and replace the Obama law, only to fail. The repeal effort was widely seen as contributing to Republicans losing the House in 2018.

Since then, many GOP lawmakers have tried to avoid the issue altogether.

Economist Sara Collins of the Commonwealth Fund, who led the study about under insured Americans, says cost and coverage problems are intertwined. Citing the Democrats’ debate over Medicare for All, she says what’s missing from that discussion is that “one doesn’t have to go that far in order to improve the financial situation for millions of people — you can do that with much more targeted, incremental policies.”

Senate vote on retirement-savings measure not likely this month, so supporters ready push for fall

from: www.investmentnews.com

Jul 23, 2019 @ 2:18 pm

By Mark Schoeff Jr.

When congressional leaders and President Donald J. Trump reached a budget agreement Monday, they closed it off to additional measures, including a landmark retirement-savings bill that is stalled in the Senate.

Backers of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act were hoping to get it folded into the $2.7 trillion spending pact, which suspends the debt limit until July 2021, but came up short.

“It was not for lack of trying on our behalf,” said Chris Spence, senior director of federal government relations at TIAA.

The SECURE Act, which would bring about the biggest changes in retirement policy in a decade, would provide legal protections for employers to include annuities in retirement plans, make it easier for small businesses to band together to offer plans, and increase the age for required minimum distributions from 70½ to 72, among other provisions. It was approved 417-3 by the House.

Several senators, including Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., are objecting to the bill for policy reasons unrelated to its retirement provisions. That’s preventing the bill from being passed quickly by unanimous consent. Spokespeople for Mr. Cruz and Mr. Toomey weren’t immediately available for comment.

Getting time for a full debate on the Senate floor looks unlikely before the chamber departs next week for its summer recess.

“We’re not going to see floor time before August,” Mr. Spence said. “We need to come together and regroup to figure out what can be done in September to move this forward.”

Paul Richman, chief government and political affairs officer at the Insured Retirement Institute, hopes that the SECURE Act will be included in appropriations legislation that must be approved this fall to avoid a government shutdown.

One of the points of the budget agreement says no policy changes can be included in government-agency spending bills unless they’re approved by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority-party leaders in each chamber and Mr. Trump.

“All have said they have no issues with the SECURE Act,” Mr. Richman said. “We continue to remain optimistic that the leadership of Congress and the president see the value of enacting this into law sooner rather than later.”

When the insurance lobby kicked off its campaign to get SECURE approved, they said doing so before August was critical. As the presidential election year gets closer, legislative activity on Capitol Hill is likely to slow.

But SECURE proponents are taking setbacks in stride.

“The bill is a very positive force,” Mr. Spence said. “It’s not a policy issue. We’re getting caught up in the politics of it. It’s got to be a matter of time before it breaks loose and gets over the finish line.”

In the meantime, the lobbying continues. On Tuesday, the American Retirement Association released research showing the retirement-savings gap on a state-by-state basis and asserted the SECURE Act would address the 28.3 million Americans who do not have access to a workplace retirement plan.

 When it comes to introducing new practices into the flow of day-to-day talent acquisition, HR can’t always afford to sit back and wait on strategic changes, said Tony Lee, vice president of editorial at the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Instead, HR should experiment before asking for permission, Lee said, given the dire straits many companies find themselves in due to the current talent market. Otherwise, new ideas may never take off. “Do it and then ask for forgiveness,” he told attendees at SHRM’s annual conference Tuesday.

Lee recommended a few ways that HR can think about recruiting with a disruptive mindset ⁠— and in turn, bolster better talent management habits. 

#1: A simple personal touch can reduce ‘ghosting’

Before even getting into the complexity of recruiting new talent, employers may want to think about those who they’ve already hired. Recent fears of ghosting by both applicants far along in the process as well as first-day hires mean HR needs to think about ways to reach out to them more personally, Lee said.

There are several options. Employers can set up new hires with a “buddy,” a long-time employee who can take them to lunch on their first day and help them get up to speed. They can place a small gift on a new hire’s desk — Lee suggested a bouquet of fruit kabobs. Perhaps the IT department can program a welcome message on the hire’s laptop so that it’s the first thing they see.

The latter point might be a good test of the organization’s onboarding process in and of itself, Lee said. “How many of you can actually have a laptop functional on the person’s desk that day?”

#2: Adapt to what younger candidates say they want

Millennials and members of Generation Z may be looped together in talent discussion, but they have fundamentally different expectations of their work due to life experiences, Lee said.

Millennials, for example, have a reputation for job hopping, but may also appreciate an employer that directly engages them on what would make them stay, Lee said. “Don’t be afraid to ask that question.”

Though research seems divided as to whether most Gen Zers prioritize salary above all else in a job, Lee said the Great Recession’s impact has led many members of this generation to be financially conscious, and that HR should have this aspect in mind. Lee also cited research showing 43% of Gen Z prefers face-to-face communication, and he said employers should look for ways to provide face time for Gen Zers.

#3: Make the application process shorter — five minutes is enough

Poor application completion rates result in the loss of quality talent, Lee said, and sluggish processes may be to blame for some early exits.

To test the effectiveness of the candidate experience, he told audience members to apply for jobs at their own companies, looking to bring the average time-to-complete down to five minutes.

One such model is the “red light test,” Lee said. Under this analogy, if a candidate were to stop at a red light and begin the application process, they should be able to complete it before the light turns green.

#4: Expand the use of remote work

Most employers now say remote work benefits both the company and employees, Lee said, meaning HR should give more thought to expanding remote work opportunities.

As a proof of concept, Lee appealed to the typical remote-work experiences of attendees. People tend to work harder from home, Lee said, for fear of seeming lazy or otherwise disconnected from their teams. With this in mind, recruiters might consider qualified, out-of-town candidates more readily.

#5: Create and engage with an alumni network

So-called “boomerang” employees provide a quick and easy source of talent that is already familiar with how the organization works, according to Lee. “These can be some of your best new hires,” he said.

HR can help such an initiative forward by creating a company alumni network that keeps former employees in the loop. Be wary of re-hiring those who may have been fired for disciplinary reasons, though, Lee said.

#6: Provide a little incentive toward referrals

Referrals are still the primary source of new hires at many organizations, Lee said, but the payments employers offer to workers in order to encourage referrals are often low, if they exist at all.

What HR offers for referrals may vary depending on company size and type of position, but even a gift card could be effective for encouraging referrals to hourly positions. And while the organization should avoid homogeneity, Lee said diverse companies should be able to encourage diverse referrals.

By: Ryan Golden / HRDive

Pretty heavy reading but these multiple white papers from various record-keepers like Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard on the value of Retirement Plan Consultant services are still really interesting. I appreciate the fact that these firms, which were traditionally known to try and work direct without advisors, have come around to the conclusion that the plan level input and participant engagement we add is a win-win for everyone. This specific Vanguard white paper tries to quantify the hypothetical future wealth creation plan participants in plans with advisors would receive vs. those without a retirement plan consultant like Arcwood. The Alpha is staggering at over 3.5% annualized. Which is hard to believe until you drill down into the article and look into the areas this increased retirement success come from. Which includes an advisors work on crucial areas like asset allocation policy, risk management frameworks, manager oversight, and most importantly plan design advocacy and implementation.

Click here to read the white paper in its entirety.

If legislation passes to allow for open multiple employer plans (MEPs) for plan sponsors without a common nexus, experts believe they will offer benefits to plan sponsors, but there would be some considerations to explore before joining one.

Generally speaking, retirement plan experts believe that open multiple employer plans (MEPs) offer several benefits to plan sponsors, particularly small business employers.

However, these experts caution that there are some downsides that sponsors should consider as well before deciding to enter into an open MEP, should the SECURE Act get passed to permit these types of retirement plans to exist for plan sponsors without a common nexus.

Closed MEPs permit plan sponsors to join into this type of pooled retirement plan as long as they have a common nexus—such as industry. Unlike with pension plans, “closed” does not mean it is not open to new entrants, it means not all plan sponsors can join the MEP. The new legislation would allow plan sponsors without a common nexus to join MEPs, called open MEPs. Probably the biggest upside for sponsors would be “limited fiduciary liability,” says Christine Stokes, head of DCIO strategy at Nuveen in New York. “As a plan sponsor, you are never fully absolved from this liability, but it introduces limited liability.”

Deb Rubin, vice president and managing director of TPA and specialty markets at Transamerica in Washington, D.C., adds: “The benefit to plan sponsors of pooled arrangements and open MEPs is that they are structured with a tremendous amount of support, with a third-party administrator handing the 3(16) administrative component—the day-to-day arrangements, on top of signing off on Form 5500. Plus, there is a 3(38) fiduciary handing the investment decisions. Together, that is a structure for a small plan to get maximum fiduciary support.”

That said, the SECURE Act does not make it clear as to how much fiduciary responsibility will shift to a third party, notes Tom Reese, an investment adviser with Conrad Siegel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

That’s why it would be important for a sponsor in an open MEP to closely read the contracts and service agreements of providers to see what it is taking on, Rubin says.

Chad Parks, founder and CEO of Ubiquity Retirement + Savings in San Francisco, fears that “MEPs add more layers of legal complexity, which leads to higher plan costs. With more attention on fees and reasonable costs these days, we think open MEPs could go in the opposite direction and add more costs.”

In fact, Stokes says, BrightScope—a sister company of PLANSPONSOR—did a study of open MEP costs and found that they could be four basis points higher because of these administrative costs. “So, open MEPs are not a guarantee of lower fees because there are still operational complexities of combining plans of various companies,” she says. “So, before joining an open MEP, a sponsor needs to explore whether or not there is a financial benefit to doing so.”

Employers would also still be on the hook for “nondiscrimination testing and service crediting for eligibility and vesting as individual employers,” says Barb Van Zomeran, senior vice president of ERISA at Ascensus in St. Cloud, Minnesota. “As a result, each employer will still be required to gather and submit data to a MEP provider responsible for administration.”

Open MEPs might be a better choice for smaller plans, Parks says, because larger plan sponsors may not like how they seek to reduce costs with limited investment menus that are offered to all the companies in the plan, along with minimal plan design.

Stokes agrees: “Especially as you move up market, sponsors already benefit from scale, and they like to control the participant experience. For some plan sponsors, relinquishing control and investment selection might not be viewed as a good thing. Some are paternalistic about their participant demographics and want more of a hands-on approach. With an open MEP, you lose any customized communications and oversight of the call center experience. Thus, it is important for sponsors to assess whether or not an open MEP is in the best interest of their company.”

That said, a plan sponsor in an open MEP always has the option of moving into a single employer plan, Rubin says. However, Parks says, if a sponsor has been in an open MEP for a long period of time, “after offloading the majority of their fiduciary responsibility, it would be difficult for them to keep up with developments in defined contribution plans, which could make leaving the MEP somewhat problematic.”

In addition, sponsors still need to ensure that the open MEP plan administrator, as a prudent fiduciary, is thorough about its process for selecting the plan’s providers and documents that process in great detail, adds Nasrin Mazooji, vice president of compliance and regulatory affairs at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings. “Keeping ahead of those and making sure the processes are consistently being carried out is important,” she adds.

However, open MEPs might convince more small employers that heretofore have not offered a retirement plan to join these pooled arrangements, Parks says. “I think it will help with the perception that these retirement plans are not so intimidating, costly and burdensome, and that by joining a MEP and signing off, it should make it easier for businesses to put retirement plans in place,” he says.

Another factor for sponsors to consider is that the SECURE Act would raise the $500 tax credit that businesses receive for three years for offering a retirement plan to $5,000 a year, Parks adds. “In essence, the government will be paying companies to put these plans in place, and I would expect more adoption if we educate the audience.”

In addition, the SECURE Act would eliminate the “one-bad-apple” rule that would nullify the entire plan if just one company in an open MEP is noncompliant, Rubin says. “The elimination of that rule should create more comfort among employers to join open MEPs,” she says.Ultimately, employers need to weigh these pros and cons because it is likely the Senate will pass the SECURE Act, predicts Jeanne de Cervens, vice president and director of federal government relations at Transamerica in Baltimore. “I am very confident that it is not a question of if, but when this bill will be passed, having already passed by an overwhelming vote in the House.”

There is a lot of talk about Financial Wellness right now. Every provider seems to be offering something tied into their system. However, the most important thing you as an investment committee member or plan sponsor should know, is like those before them, they are all almost entirely all Self-Service-Programs.

In our opinion the retirement plan service industry’s greatest shortcoming is found in participant engagement. If you don’t already have a plan and advisor in place with boots on the ground to engage and help your participants with the existing retirement plan, simply adding a self-service/do-it-yourself financial wellness program isn’t going to move the needle for very many participants.

Arcwood works with many providers including Fidelity, MassMutual, Dave Ramsey, etc. to help our plan sponsors drive Financial Wellness Programs and offer more than just access to an online tool. Here are some of the main options and resources available to most sponsors when considering a Financial Wellness program:

THIRD-PARTY ONLINE WELLNESS PROGRAMS

There are several programs on this list which is growing daily. They include: Questis, Retiremap, Financial Finesse and of course Dave Ramsey’s Smart Dollar. They are all traditionally used online by employees at a self-service pace. Arcwood combines these online courses with other financial wellness meetings and engagement for those sponsors who have additional funds and are looking to provide more resources. For those sponsors who like the Dave Ramsey baby step approach the program includes a free budgeting tool. Signing up for the program through Arcwood provides sponsors a 30%+ discount to per head pricing.

401K PROVIDER (Record-Keeper) WELLNESS PROGRAMS

Through their Record-Keeping platforms many providers are now offering version of online wellness tools that go beyond simple gap analysis. MassMutual’s program, Map My Benefits, for example can help guide participants through other aspects of their financial life like short term savings needs, college education funding and any possible life insurance gaps. Prioritizing them based upon the employees stage in life, current resources and liabilities. While companies like Vanguard and Fidelity both have budgeting tools that can pull in outside liabilities, like student loan debt, and advise on savings plans for both those and the 401k. Our advisors focus much of the wellness education we provide on the tools already available like these combining them with other other financial wellness courses.

ADVISOR LEAD & SPECIALIST SEMINARS

There are also many resources available to sponsor and advisor through their existing fund provider relationships. For example both Franklin Templeton Investments and BlackRock Funds have speakers available to provide educational seminar meetings on Social Security Benefits. Arcwood combines these specialist meetings with other financial wellness meetings we provide ourselves as well as local 501(c)3 not-for-profit speakers available on other topics like debt management and budgeting.

Financial Wellness is important to us. If you are looking into programs and would like some advice please reach out to one of our business development advisors and we would be happy to discuss your options.