Category Archives: Disability Plans
Get Busy On Your Long Term Care Plans
Let’s look at the state of the Long Term Care (LTC) market in Massachusetts. If you currently have LTC coverage — either in your company or personally — you should plan to review it and probably modify your strategy going forward. And if you Don’t yet have Long Term Care coverage and you’re over 45, [...]
Disability Protection – How Does Your Company Plan Compare?
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has released data about sick time, short and long term disability and retirement disability benefits. A look at this data might show you how your company’s offerings compare to the rest of the US. The definition of coverage in the US were 6 days of sick time, 26 weeks [...]
Maternal Depression: What’s an Employer To Do?
A recent report discusses Maternal depression. It’s a serious and common disorder that can compromise a woman’s health, reduce her quality of life and reduce her functional status and may negatively impact pregnancy outcomes. Maternal depression is a common but serious disorder. It is also quite treatable. But while there are readily available effective treatments [...]
Sick Leave Causes Confrontation between Bosses and Staff
Due to this economic downturn companies are cutting back on staffing, leaving fewer people with more work. That makes it even harder to take time off to deal with a medical condition, whether it’s their own or that of a family member. Under the FMLA, workers can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, [...]
America Is in Denial About Disability
In an amazing piece, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has published a survey of Americans’ attitudes about Disability Insurance. Amazing. That’s all I can say. Here’s the bottom line: 84% of Americans agree they should insure their cars 80% think it’s crucial to have homeowners insurance 48% think it’s important to be insured for disability. Stupid, stupid, [...]
H1N1 Sick Leave and Mandatory Paid Vacations
Seriously, our Representatives NEVER cease to amaze me with the stupidity of the things they try to micromanage. Latest examples: Senator Chris Dodd (thank God he’s leaving!!) in the Senate and George Miller and Lynn Woolsey of California in the House have introduced legislation (the House version is the Emergency Influenza Containment Act (H.R. 3991) [...]
Tax Treatment of Employee Benefits: an Update
IRS has released 2010 guidelines on tax treatments of employee benefits. You can get a copy here.
Disability Benefits: OK to Discriminate, Exclude
A Long Term Disability case recently decided by the First Circuit Court, while ostensibly about something besides whether or not an employer can exclude commissions from benefits determinations and have different plans for different classes in fact underscored exactly those two things. The case actually revolved primarily around an employee’s ability to appeal in vague [...]