We normally report on actual legislative/regulatory developments, but this post discusses a false alarm coming from the IRS that appeared to subject health care TPAs to burdensome new reporting requirements in order to help head off any potential industry confusion.At issue is Department of Treasury Final Rule 6050 W, which was published way back in August of last year. The rule is intended to define “third party transaction settlement...
A New "Life Line" for Group Workers' Comp. Funds in New York
In the wake of several high profile group workers’ compensation funds (SIGs) failures a few years ago, the future for other SIGs operating in that state has been looking bleak.With the state on the hook for unpaid claims totaling between $300 million and $800 million (depending if you believe industry or government estimates) , policy-makers were formally recommending that most funds be shut down and impose such rigorous new regulations...
Stop-Loss Insurance, Reinsurance and "Partially Self-Insured" -- We Need to Talk
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but words mean things. I make this seemingly odd comment because I continue to observe a couple words being misused by self-insurance industry professionals on a regular basis and we all need to get on the same page.Perhaps most aggravating is the term “partially self-insured,” which continues to get tossed around to describe self-insured health plans that utilize stop-loss insurance. Of course...
Big Win for Captives in the Big Sky State -- And Related News
The Montana State Legislature only meets for two months every two years so getting a bill passed requires a certain amount of precision. So it is particularly impressive that legislation to significantly improve the state’s captive insurance statute cleared the House and Senate by near unanimous votes and is expected to be signed into law by the governor.Among other things, the legislation allows for the formation of incorporated...
Book Review: "The Retirement Savings Time Bomb... and How to Defuse it"
by Richard F. O'Boyle, Jr., LUTCF, MBA"The Insider's Guide to Retirement and Insurance Planning"http://www.retirementandinsurance.com Thank goodness Ed Slott, author of “The Retirement Savings Time Bomb… and How to Defuse It,” has a good sense of humor, because while he looks harmless, his message is nothing short of apocalyptic. Your hard-saved retirement plan is at risk from something worse than inflation or stock market gyrations...
Digesting Health Care Reform
So we hurry up and wait.That is perhaps the most apt description of how self-insured employers and their business partners have adapted to the new health care law and the ongoing reform process it has triggered.For obvious reasons, we saw a flurry of activity immediately after the passage of PPACA to first determine what was actually in the legislation and then to move forward with compliance planning. This stage seems to have...
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