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Middle-class families — those with incomes of between roughly $50,000 and $180,000 per year (depending on where they live) — are becoming increasingly reliant on workplace benefits to ensure their financial well-being in case of a disability or critical illness.

Simple health insurance is insufficient to carry the load. The loss of a breadwinner's or caregiver's financial contribution through death or disability is often devastating. Here's how you can help.

Many organizations assume that once open enrollment ends and payroll deductions are set, everything will continue to run smoothly. In reality, enrollment changes, life events, terminations, plan switches and billing delays routinely create discrepancies that can quietly cost both employers and employees money.

That's why it's important for employers to conduct regular reconciliations of their benefits offerings.

For most retirees, maximizing the amount of income they can take from their portfolio with minimal tax implications is their main financial objective. This is the one thing that makes everything else possible.

Being able to enjoy time with grandchildren, play golf or travel and secure your savings against the need for long-term care all hinges on your ability to convert your retirement nest egg into income that will last you and your spouse for a lifetime.

In other words, you need a secure income beyond Social Security and your required minimum withdrawals from your retirement accounts. Fortunately, you can create your own pension.

Plaintiff's lawyers are breaking new ground by suing employers for allegedly failing in their fiduciary duties to manage their voluntary benefit plans, including dental, vision, accident insurance, critical illness, cancer and hospital indemnity benefits.

These class action lawsuits typically allege that employers exercise sufficient control over these plans to trigger fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and that those duties were breached. Once ERISA applies, employers can face claims tied not just to plan design, but to the prudence of benefit selection and monitoring.

Employers grappling with the cost and complexity of GLP-1 drugs are increasingly testing a workaround: steering certain employees to direct-to-consumer arrangements that operate outside the company's health plan.

The shift reflects a growing tension for benefits executives: how to manage soaring GLP-1 demand while preserving affordability, plan sustainability and clinical oversight.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in January 2026 rescinded Biden-era workplace anti-harassment and discrimination guidance mainly focused on protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and breastfeeding and pregnancy-related issues.

The move, which came after the EEOC achieved a quorum and a Republican majority, follows through on the policy priorities of the Trump administration. However, despite the rescission, employers may still face harassment and discrimination lawsuits from employees covered by the guidance.

The Dreaded Insurance Audit

If you run a business, at some point you'll be contacted by your insurer telling you they need to conduct an audit of your coverage to make sure you are being charged the appropriate premium.

For workers' comp policies that means looking at your head counts, hours worked and the type of jobs your workers are doing to see if any of those elements have changed since the policy took effect. They'll ask for a lot of documentation. It sounds stressful, but there's a way to handle these audits and it just takes some preparation.

Even if you have company cars or a fleet of vans, occasions may arise that require an employee to run an errand in their personal vehicle or one of your employees needs to rent a car while on a business trip visiting a client.

In these circumstances if you don't have the proper coverage, you could be leaving your organization exposed to liability if an employee injures a third party in an accident. Here's how to protect your company against this.

People who are older than 60 are generally happier than younger adults and teens, new research has found.

According to a survey on happiness and aging by banking giant HSBC, people are the happiest between the ages of 60 and 80. Why is this, and what can you do to lead a fulfilling life as you age?

Exercise can do more than improve your physical health. Research increasingly suggests that regular movement can also reduce symptoms of depression, improve emotional well-being and help build a positive attitude as you tackle the day.

While exercise is not a replacement for therapy and other treatments for people with depression, it can help some people better cope.

More and more Americans are being saddled with high out-of-pocket medical expenses after an accident, especially those enrolled in high-deductible health plans.

Depending on the deductible, a broken leg can end up costing thousands of dollars out of pocket before health insurance kicks in, a sum that many people struggle to scrape together. If you are concerned about the potential for large outlays after an accident, there is an inexpensive option that can provide an important backstop: accident insurance.

While employers' main priority for containing workers' comp costs should be workplace safety, they also need to keep an eye out for three stealth factors that can nudge their premiums higher.

Where employees work, what they do from day to day and how production technology affects workplace behavior are all often flying below the radar for many employers, who may be hit with higher premiums after an insurer audit and worker reclassification. In addition, technology designed to increase productivity — like wearables — may actually raise the potential for workplace injuries.