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| Benefits & Administration |
| Addressing Each Generation’s Financial Weaknesses |
| Holistic financial education can help different generations in the work force address their unique vulnerabilities that can derail plans for retirement. Millennials, Generation X and Baby Boomers each have distinct strengths and weaknesses when it comes to managing and saving money, research from Financial Finesse shows. While Millennial employees (younger than age 30) tend to have the lowest average financial wellness scores as a whole, they continue to slightly edge out Generation X in several areas of money management, Financial Finesse found. However, Millennials may have been the most impacted psychologically from the Great Recession. From the way they manage their money to the way they invest, the focus is more on not losing money than growing their wealth for the long term.Read more > |
| In its nine-part educational series for plan sponsors, BMO shines a light on retirement plan issues including plan design and operational efficiency. The series is designed to assist plan sponsors cost-effectively help participants gain the most from their 401(k) plans. The third paper in the last section, just released, deals with participant utilization and addresses plan leakage and ways plan sponsors can stanch outflows.Read more > |
| Managing the Big Spend on Pharmacy Benefits |
| A survey from Buck Consultants indicates how employers can look to spend their pharmacy dollars more effectively. More than three-fourths (77%) of respondents to Buck Consultants’ Prescription Drug Benefit Survey reported spending 16% or more of their health benefit cost on pharmacy benefits, up from 72% in the previous year. Buck notes that many plan sponsors are concerned that their pharmacy benefit program is not maximized or as cost-effective as it could be. There is an array of cost and quality-control strategies—coverage rules and clinical programs—to consider when building a pharmacy benefit program.Read more > |
| According to the BNY Mellon Investment Strategy and Solutions Group (ISSG), the funded status of the typical U.S. corporate pension plan increased 5.1 percentage points in February, reaching 87.5%. It was the best monthly gain since January 2011. Equity markets bolstered assets and rising interest rates created lower liabilities, resulting in February’s gains offsetting January’s declines.Read more > |
