An overview of pooling and its relevance to life and health insurance for companies. It covers the major pooling trends in the UK and globally as well as innovations and outlook for the area.

If you work in an open-plan, hot-desking environment, you have probably at some point found yourself trudging through the office, clutching your belongings, in search of a free desk. This feeling of homelessness is an increasing issue in society more broadly – and in the workplace, employees’ well-being is traded in for the company’s bottom line.

How many organizations send employees on international assignment, calculate the ROI, and believe it was a worthwhile investment? How many expats go on assignment and return to a job that engages them and leverages what they learned?

Let’s say you’re interviewing a new applicant for a job and you feel something is off. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you’re a bit uncomfortable with this person. She says all the right things, her resume is great, she’d be a perfect hire for this job – except your gut tells you otherwise.

2016 was a symbolic year for pension systems in Japan. In November 2016, the Japanese Diet enacted new legislation that shortens the eligibility period for public pensions from 25 years to 10 years. This was followed the next month by a revision to the automatic balancing system.

Surveys of employers and their employees consistency show wellness at work is a key consideration. The treatment of chronic conditions that impair energy levels, require short or long-term absences, and make serious use of healthcare insurance have become a top priority around the world.

Global Benefits Vision: Good morning, Peter. Perhaps you’d like to start off with the highlights of your career. Peter de Vries: I joined IGP in 1988, when I was just a “slip of a lad”, to head up the European region, which, at the time and still today is the largest region for IGP in terms of premium. While most of our clients, about 55 percent, are North American multinationals, most of the premium is paid in the European region.

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Interview Peter de Vries, International Group Program (IGP) GBV Pension Reform in Japan Tadahiko Endo Relying on your Gut Instinct Leena Johns, MD Your Gut Instinct May Be Wrong at Work – and How to Know When It Isn’t Gleb Tsipursky Being W.O.R.L.D. Wise – Conclusion (6) Natalie Richter

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There’s a joke among insurers that there are two things that health insurance companies hate to do – take risks and pay claims. But, of course, these are the essence of their business!

My outlook for 2017 and beyond is that the U.S. economy will likely see another recession. Yes, the economic picture currently looks wonderful. The Dow and S&P 500 are at record levels. Unemployment is well below 5 percent of the labor force. Inflation is still tame. The U.S. dollar is strong.

– how Spieker Point’s platform, DECK DecisionWare, helped MSH International innovate in the global mobility industry with the Aviator product.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, came closer to repeal as the U.S.Senate and House on January 12, 2017 passed a “budget reconciliation” order to launch a formal legislative process that may lead to substantial repeal. Or maybe not.

It is hardly unusual for Cabinet nominees to leave more questions than answers after their confirmation hearings. Yet for the millions whose lives hang in the balance depending on the future of the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) answers were surprisingly vague on January 18, 2017 – especially coming from a man who has authored a detailed, 242-page replacement for the ACA, more commonly called Obamacare.

Successful Captive Programs: The Insurer’s Evolving Role Jayesh Patel As Republicans Dismantle Obamacare, Insurers Likely to Bolt J.B. Silvers Fixes, Not Repeals, More Typical for Major Legislation Like Obamacare John McDonough Tom Price, Short on Specifics In Trumpcare Hearing Miranda Yaver Get Ready for The Coming Economic Recession Jay Zagorsky Leveraging Big Data and Software for Competitive Advantage Greg Campbell Sara Hallberg

Interest in using captive programs as risk-management tools has been slowly growing within the Employee Benefits (EB) community for some time. But recently it has been gaining momentum, as multinational corporations have begun to realize the potential the concept holds.

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The “Global Employee Benefits Watch” Report Analyzed Chris Bruce Death in Service Pensions Paul Avis Starting an Employee Benefits Captive Marc Reinhardt Sven Roelandt R&D: What is the Difference between a Migrant and an Expat? Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels IGP Sao Paulo Conference Report

Nepalis, Indians, Americans, Syrians and Pakistanis all have something in common: they were the top five migrant groups who received family-related visas to the UK in the year to March 2016. But while US citizens coming to join a family member who is already in Britain are often called “expatriates” or “expats”, the others are often portrayed as “migrants” – mainly because of the country of their birth.

Chris Bruce, Managing Director of Thomsons Online Benefits, discusses the Global Employee Benefits Watch 2016/17 report, shining a light on the relationship among benefits strategy and technology, employee engagement, and business success.

The management of employee benefit plans through captives continues to gain traction with multinational corporations in all sectors of industry. Captives are rarely the beginning but generally the end point of a risk management journey. Every journey has a starting point, of course. This year’s European Captive Forum (ECF) in Luxembourg included several employee benefit related breakout sessions. One was called “Getting Started – What Do You Need to Consider and What Is the Role of HR?”

Having a dependant’s income continue when an employee dies is, to my mind, a massively valuable benefit. But is the product and market understood by both purchasers and employees?

The 2016 IGP Regional Americas Seminar, held on September 15, 2016 at the Renaissance Hotel in São Paulo, Brazil, attracted over 100 registrants and offered a choice of 12 country-specific presentations focused on the Americas region that explained both the basics and the latest developments on social security, plan design, funding requirements, trends and legislative updates in those areas.

Generali Group’s new management under Group CEO Philippe Donnet and Frédéric de Courtois, CEO of Global Business Lines and International, in November 2016 confirmed their commitment to the business units in charge of global mobility and global employee benefits, and in particular to Generali’s network, GEB. De Courtois at the GEB Forum 2016 announced increased investments in GEB. The areas targeted for growth in the years ahead include:

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In his first all-Conservative budget, the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that from April 6, 2017, applicants for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) who are assessed as unfit for work but capable of work-related activity will receive a lower level of State Benefit, equivalent to Job Seekers Allowance. This means that the annualized value of benefits will fall from £5,312 to £3,801.