Products June 22, 2016

ABGFS Offers Clients Liazon’s Bright Choices Exchange

Bright Choices helps employers save money on their health care costs by setting predictable budgets—while allowing employees to personalize their benefits package with a selection of health, dental, vision, life, disability, and other benefits.
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Alliance Benefit Group Financial Services, Corp. (ABGFS) has partnered with Liazon to offer its clients Liazon’s Bright Choices Exchange.

Bright Choices is an online benefits store that aims to change the way employers and employees buy benefits. It helps employers save money on their health care costs by setting predictable budgets, while also allowing employees to personalize their benefits package with a selection of health, dental, vision, life, disability, and other benefits from national and regional providers.                

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Cloud computing infrastructure and security protection ensures continual access and safeguards confidentiality of data transmission. Decision support and education helps employees make smarter benefits selections.

“The addition of Bright Choices to our allmybenefits program has brought much needed simplicity to the complexity of benefits for both employees and employers,” says Bradley K. Arends, CEO of ABGFS. “The allmybenefits program now includes a fully comprehensive employee benefits package, providing the education, aggregation, automation, and a shopping experience rich in choice for sponsors and their participants, which is a rare but crucial combination to succeed in today’s environment of employee benefit costs and regulations.”

Arends adds, “The convergence of health and retirement and our unique allmybenefits approach, combined with the Bright Choices Exchange and our allmymoney financial wellness app for participants, offers employers a new, contemporary way to efficiently and affordably deliver employee benefit programs that can be customized by each employee.”

More information about the allmybenefits program is available at www.allmybenefits.com.

Data and Research June 22, 2016

Social Security Trust Fund Still Projected to Last Through 2034

The Social Security Administration reminds the public that Congress still needs to take action to keep these benefits afloat.
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The annual report of the Social Security Trust Funds indicated that total assets of the OASDI Trust Funds increased by $23 billion in 2015 to a total of $2.82 trillion. The combined trust fund reserves are still growing and will continue to do so through 2019. However, beginning in 2020, the total cost of the program is expected to exceed income. In order for the combined OASDI funds not to become depleted in 2034, Congress will need to take some action, the Social Security Administration said.

“I am pleased that Congress passed legislation, signed into law by President Obama last November, to avert a projected shortfall in the Disability Insurance Trust Fund,” said Carolyn Colvin, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “With the small, temporary reallocation of the Social Security contribution rate, the DI fund will now be able to pay full disability benefits until 2023, and the retirement fund alone will still be adequate into 2035, the same as before the allocation. Now is the time for people to engage in the important national conversation about how to keep Social Security strong.”

The report also indicated that total income to the OASDI Trust Funds was $920 billion in 2015, while total expenditures were $897 billion to a total of 60 million Social Security beneficiaries. The projected actuarial deficit over the 75-year-long projection is 2.66% of taxable payroll, 0.02 percentage points smaller than last year’s report. During 2015, 169 million working Americans contributed to Social Security through their payroll taxes.

The annual report can be viewed from here.

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