Life-insurance startup Ethos in May 2021 raised USD 200 million in a funding round valuing the business at more than 2 billion. The San Francisco, California-based company previously had raised a total of USD 100 million. Ethos is a producer and a third-party administrator (TPA) for life insurance carriers. Its platform allows customers to purchase life insurance policies online. Currently, the company works with a list of carriers that

In 2018, Congress initiated a series of actions that represent a shift away from placing the full responsibility – and blame – on individual people to make their own healthier choices. These actions also show a growing recognition that many stakeholders – including the government – are accountable for a healthier, more equitable food system. This shift in thinking reflects an understanding that government can and should play a role in improving the diet of Americans.

Randstad US in April 2018 released results from its quarterly Randstad Workmonitor survey (Q1 2018) that suggest that although 82 percent of U.S. workers surveyed say the ability to work from anywhere at any time allows them to maintain a healthy work-life balance, more than half (62%) still prefer to work in the office — and this number is even higher among young workers. Sixty-five percent of those aged

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase’s announcement that they will create an independent company to offer health care to their employees “free from profit-making incentives and constraints” sent a shock through the health care industry, with share prices of some incumbents tumbling on Jan. 30, 2018.

U.S. gross domestic product is at an all-time high. U.S. life expectancy is not. Life expectancy has fallen for the second time in two years – from a high of 78.9 years in 2014 to 78.6 years in 2016. It fell for men and women, whites, blacks and Hispanics. Statistics show that thousands were preventable, premature deaths.

Dariush Mozaffarian The national debate on health care is moving into a new, hopefully bipartisan phase. The fundamental underlying challenge is cost – the massive and ever-rising price of care which drives nearly all disputes, from access to benefit levels to Medicaid expansion. So far, policymakers have tried to reduce costs by tinkering with how care is delivered. But focusing on care delivery to save money is like trying

When it comes to research and data on consumer behaviors and attitudes, one of the first names that come to mind in the United States is the Gallup organization. Their most recent report, State of the American Workplace, takes a comprehensive snapshot of the modern American workforce, and was created to help business leaders optimize their attraction, retention, engagement, and performance strategies in a time of unparalleled advancement and social change

Increased leisure time and reduced labor supply of young men may be partly due to the improved quality of video games, according to a working paper published in September 2017 by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The objective of the paper is to distinguish the increase in leisure due to improved leisure technology from increases in leisure due to other forces such as declining labor market

After much secrecy and no public deliberation, Senate Republicans finalized release their “draft” repeal and replace bill for the Affordable Care Act on June 22. Unquestionably, the released “draft” will not be the final version.

Coverage of pre-existing conditions in the U.S. health insurance market – what is at stake in the 2017 healthcare reforms? Pre-existing conditions became the focus of debate on the American Health Care Act, which was narrowly passed 217-213 by the House of Representatives.

Every business traveller these days is expected to have access to corporate networks and secure data on multiple devices. These devices include smart phones, tablets, and laptop computers, all of which are vulnerable to lapses in security protocols. Data security and privacy have always been a priority for any corporation − and this includes in-house proprietary data as well as client data − yet the increasingly invasive nature of governments and their agents has the potential to breach a company’s internal controls, as well as pose a multi-jurisdictional litigious liability to its operation.

Following the successful conclusion in January 2017 of the bilateral agreement on insurance and reinsurance between the European Union and the U.S., industry body Insurance Europe welcomed the deal, supporting in particular the removal of the discriminatory collateral requirements that E.U. reinsurers were subject to when placing business in the U.S.. This change is expected to support bilateral trade in insurance and reinsurance. However, the National Conference of Insurance

Just when U.S. employers were getting the hang of program rules under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and HIPAA, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in May 2016 has added new regulations on to workplace wellness programs. These regulations, issued under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), are additional to the requirements already necessary for compliance with ACA/HIPAA wellness programs. These rules

Captive insurance has been an increasingly popular alternative risk transfer mechanism for U.S. companies for decades. But what may come as a surprise is that one of the great growth opportunities isn’t a new property or casualty exposure. It’s employee benefits. Some seemingly minor changes in the U.S. regulatory landscape may go a long way in explaining the renewed interest in employee benefits captives – but read on: Peter