American International Group (AIG) in March 2017 announced that they will open offices in Luxembourg to ensure operations in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland after Britain leaves the European Union are not affected in any way. AIG has long written business in Continental Europe from the U.K. under the umbrella of AIG Europe Limited, which has branches across the EEA and Switzerland. By 2019, AIG will have

Remarks by President Trump in Listening Session with Health Insurance Company CEOs Source: The White House, Office of the Press Secretary February 27, 2017 THE PRESIDENT:  You are the big ones.  You are the biggest of the big, right?  (Laughter.)  That’s very impressive.  Thank you for being here.  We just had a great meeting with the governors on the horrible effects that Obamacare is having.  We’re going to change

Just days after hiring Jay Fulcher as CEO to replace David Sacks, the interim CEO who took over after former CEO Parker Conrad was ousted over a fraud investigation, Zenefits in February 2017 announced a third and largest round of layoffs in a year that saw the embattled company fined $7 million as part of a settlement with the state of California. The layoffs are part of a plan

Zenefits, designers of all-in-one HR solutions for small businesses, has appointed Jay Fulcher as executive officer and chairman of the board effective in February, 2017. Fulcher, who formerly served as president and CEO of Ooyala, as well as executive vice president of Peoplesoft, brings more than 20 years of senior management experience to Zenefits at a key time in its evolution. The announcement comes days after the company’s second

Aon in February 2017 sold its human resources business process outsourcing (BPO) platform and operations to private equity firm and alternative asset manager Blackstone for $4.3 billion plus an additional $500 million earn-out based on future performance. Closing is expected by the end of the second quarter of 2017. The sale, according to Aon’s website, is a “natural extension of the strategy the firm has pursued over the last

Global broker Arthur J. Gallagher in January 2017 announced its acquisition of Chicago’s Gruppo Marcucci. Gruppo Marcucci specializes in human resource and benefits technology solutions for benefit brokers and consultants, employers, insurance carriers, and service providers as well as the investment community. The acquisition compliments Gallagher’s growing employee benefits and consulting operations. Partners Rhonda Marcucci and Ed Barry, leaders of Gruppo Marcucci, will continue to operate from their Chicago

Optum, a health services company and part of UnitedHealth Group is merging with Surgical Care Affiliates (SCA). The primary and urgent care delivery services business works with over 80 health plans, and will acquire SCA, enabling the company to create expanded capabilities in outpatient surgical procedures. Surgical Care Affiliates is an ambulatory surgery center and surgical hospital provider. The combination of OptumCare and SCI will create a comprehensive ambulatory

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.

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.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” A logical question is: With what? The announcement of member of the U.S. House of Representatives Tom Price (Republican-Georgia) as Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services provides some answers.

Zenefits in June 2016 announced it will cut 106 jobs, or about 9% of its workforce, and close an Arizona sales operation as it addresses licensing and governance issues. GBV in February 2016 had published another report on Zenefits, Zenefits hits more turbulence. In total, Zenefits has now announced about 350 layoffs or approximately one quarter of its workforce, mostly in sales; including resignations, there remain fewer than 1,100

Travel insurance and assistance services are quickly gaining favor among travel professionals who work for companies that provide them. A new study, “Assessing the Prevalence and Value of Travel Insurance and Assistance Services”, published in September 2016 by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) and AIG Travel, reveals that 95 percent of travel professionals feel that providing insurance or assistance services to employees is a valuable benefit for those

HealthMine, a healthcare technology company based in Dallas, Texas, in August 2016 released the results of a study revealing that the majority (62%) believe that all health care plan participants should join a wellness program to help them lower their health care costs. 32% responded that wellness programs helped them reduce the number of sick days logged, and 33% said their wellness program helped them be more productive at

Connecture, an IT company that provides web-based solutions to the health insurance industry, in June 2016 acquired its Chicago-based competitor ConnectedHealth, a benefits technology company that offers an e-commerce platform that helps businesses control costs and ease the process of shopping for personalized insurance benefits online. ConnectedHealth is a private company and was founded in 2009. Based in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Connecture is a provider of a web-based consumer shopping,

CareAllies, a new subsidiary of Cigna, was established in June 2016 to help health service providers transition away from fee-for-service business models to those that encourage greater risk-sharing by establishing their own care organizations or even their own health plans. These goals – value-based reimbursement schemes – are similar to those of UnitedHealth Care’s subsidiary Optum. CareAllies will work with private and public providers to provide the technology and

Corporate pension plan buyouts reached $1.084 billion in the first quarter of 2016 according to a LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute sales survey. This is interpreted as a clear sign that companies are eager to limit the amount of risk in their pension plans. The US Group Annuity Risk Transfer Survey, released in May of this year, notes that this is the first time sales have topped $1 billion in

PPG Industries, the Pittsburgh-based coatings, specialty materials, and glass products manufacturer, in April 2016 announced that they will begin buying group annuity contracts in order to provide pension benefits to 13,000+ retirees and survivors in the U.S.A. PPG joins such large corporations as Kimberly-Clark Corp., Verizon, and General Motors, who have adopted this de-risking process in order to reduce premium payments to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC). PBGC

Europ Assistance USA, a subsidiary of Generali Group and global provider of assistance services in the fields of travel, home and family, health, and automotive, has re-branded itself as Generali Global Assistance North America (GGA), effective 12 June, 2016. The multi-phase re-branding operation will begin with the company’s Identity Protection Services division. All products and solutions carrying the Europ Assistance USA name will be transitioned to fall under GGA

Generali Global Assistance in July 2016 announced the launch in the United States of their comprehensive identity protection platform called Iris OnWatch. With identity theft on the rise, the need for 24/7 prevention, monitoring, alerting, and resolution — the so-called “four pillars of identity protection” — is an important component of cyber security. Iris OnWatch provides an integrated protection system with access to identity theft prevention, monitoring, alerts, and

Tim Crockett in May 2016 joined HX Global, a U.S. subsidiary of Healix International, as Vice President of Security, reporting to Declan Meighan, Global Director of Security. Healix International is a global provider of international medical, security and travel assistance services. Tim has spent nearly two decades in the security risk management business including extensive work in the media & entertainment, maritime, oil & gas and travel sectors. Most

AJG (Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.), global brokerage for commercial insurance, employee benefits and risk management solutions, in June 2016 acquired The Buchholz Planning Corp. for undisclosed terms. Buchholz Planning, a Madison, Wisconsin-based provider of employee benefits consulting and brokerage services for middle market and large health care businesses in the US, has over 10,000 physicians, staff, clinics, and hospitals as clients, and has been in business since 1968.

The National Center for Health Statistics (NHCS) in May 2016 reported that the percentage of Americans without health insurance has dropped below 10%, mostly due to provisions in the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) that give federal premium subsidies to low-income individuals to help them underwrite the cost of health insurance. In many cases, the insured pay little or no money to be included under health plans available in

Medical error may be the third cause of death in the United States, just behind cancer and heart disease, but we can’t be sure thanks to a flaw in the reporting system that tracks such things. Martin Makary and Michael Daniel of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine hope to change all that, as they explain in their analysis of the system used by the U.S. Centers for Disease

Lockton Benefits in May 2016 announced that Arturo Fisher has been appointed as Vice President and Senior Global Total Rewards Consultant in Lockton’s Chicago employee benefits operation, reporting to Ken Wexler, Senior Vice President and Employee Benefits Practice Leader in Chicago, with a further functional reporting line to Pam Enright, Senior Vice President and Director of Lockton Global Benefits. With more than 27 years of experience in global HR

Cigna discovered that reimbursing employees for tuition spent on higher education is a good business practice that benefits the company as well as the employee. An analysis of Cigna’s own Educational Reimbursement Program (ERP) revealed that encouraging and helping employees attain a secondary or post-secondary degree increases employee retention and career opportunities. Moreover, participants in the program are 10 percent more likely to receive a promotion, 7.5 percent more likely

As a response to growing concerns over the high cost of cancer care, the Northeast Business Group on Health (NEBGH) Solutions Center, over the course of two 2015 workshops, mounted a study that surveyed 19 self-insured employers representing 1.2 million employees, as well as physicians, oncology experts, employer benefits professionals, executives from health plans, hospitals, consulting organizations, cancer associations, and suppliers of healthcare-related services. The purpose of the study

Lockton Benefit Group in April 2016 announced a material investment in its InfoLock data intelligence platform, used to advise employers on developing comprehensive health management programs to address the continuum of health risks across their working population.  InfoLock will now include predictive analytics solution SCIO Health Analytics, enabling client service teams to gain timely insights into trends and make evidence-based recommendations that have a high probability of improving employee behavior