Editorial Mission Statement: The goal of this publication is to provide readers a broad selection of what is being written about the insurance industry and related issues. Some articles may have a “tilt” towards a particular perspective one way or another. Inclusion in this newsletter is not an endorsement of any views or content; but report the various and differing views appearing in media.



Checkup for $30, Teeth Cleaning $25: Walmart Gets Into Health Care
The retail giant wants to grab a share of the $3.6 trillion in health spending by leveraging its 150 million weekly shoppers.
By Matthew Boyle

Walmart “care hosts” take customers from the waiting area to one of 12 care rooms in the 6,500-square-foot facility. Afterward, patients are steered to the in-store pharmacy. While they wait for their prescriptions, they can visit the produce section and grab some veggies recommended by the doctor. Later, there’s even a free Zumba class in the community room.

Welcome to health care, Walmart style.

The center in Calhoun, along with one about an hour south in Dallas, Ga., represents the retailer’s attempt to grab a bigger slice of the nation’s $3.6 trillion in health spending by harnessing its greatest asset—the 150 million people coming through its 4,756 stores each week. While Walmart hasn’t said how many clinics it plans to build, it’s signaled that the health center expansion is one of its top growth initiatives.

The move pits Walmart against rivals such as CVS Health Corp., which is rolling out its own “HealthHubs,” and creates a new front in Walmart’s battle against Amazon.com Inc., which also wants to disrupt the U.S. health-care system. “We have an opportunity to help the country and to build a stronger business,” Walmart Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon told investors in December.



How to Ensure Your Executive Benefits Are to Everyone’s Advantage
Do your executive benefits adequately meet the needs of your leaders and differentiate you from other organizations? Here are some ways to enhance your current offerings so that everyone wins.
By David Hauptman and Heather Garbers / HUB INTERNATIONAL

Many organizations think they’re “good to go” with their executive benefit packages until a few basic facts are laid out that suggest…they’re not. Here are three to think about:

The reality is that your retirement plans and group benefits like disability may be perfectly adequate – superior, even – for your rank-and-file employees. But they likely fall short for higher paid senior management. Moreover, if you’re not taking a strategic view of your executive benefits packages by addressing these shortfalls while adding other value-add benefits into the mix, you’re putting your organization at a distinct disadvantage in the battle for executive talent.

Here are some ways to ensure your executive benefit packages really are good to go:

Put money on top of money.
When disability is more likely than death.
Not just any old life insurance policy will do.
Planning for the long term.
Perk-like benefits protect everyone’s interests.



Shipt Turns Grocery Delivery Into an Employee Benefit
By Abby Kleckler - Progressive GROCER

Shipt has launched Shipt 4 Work, a program that allows new and existing employees of participating companies to have their grocery and household essentials delivered to their home or office at no cost to them. The same-day delivery marketplace has revealed partnerships with 10 companies so far.

Employees of these companies can sign up for a free annual Shipt membership by visiting shipt.com/shipt4work and entering their company email address and employee ID number. Customers can then select their favorite retailers in the app and online.

“Now more than ever, companies are looking to include more value-added benefits and services to their offerings”, said Eric Stoner, director of business partnerships at Birmingham, Ala.-based Shipt. “The average person spends two hours a week traveling to and shopping in the grocery store. This new benefits offering is the equivalent of giving employees an extra two weeks’ worth of time back per year.”

Shipt was acquired by Target in 2017 and recently unveiled a new logo and brand refresh. Through a community of Shipt shoppers and an app, the service provides personal shopping and delivery to members. Available to 70% of households in more than 5,000 U.S. cities, Shipt is an independently operated, wholly owned subsidiary of Minneapolis-based Target, which is No. 15 on Progressive Grocer’s 2019 Super 50 list of the top grocers in the United States.



Twin Cities start-up offers on-demand health insurance
“80 percent of consumers on a Bind plan spend less than $500 per year [out-of-pocket] on their health benefits,” said Tony Miller, CEO of Bind.
Chris Hrapsky / KARE11.COM

What if you could buy health insurance for heart surgery the moment after your doctor said you need heart surgery?

Bind, a Minnesota-based digital insurance start-up, is taking on the current insurance industry models by offering what it calls on-demand health coverage.

‘On-demand’ and ‘health insurance’ sounds counterintuitive. After all, insurance is designed to pool ‘what-if’ money so that when something expensive does happen, there’s enough money to cover it.

Here’s how the Bind plan works.

Your premium is ultimately set by your employer, but Bind says premiums are near or below most insurance HDHP, PPO or Basic plans today.

That premium gets you core medical coverage for things like doctor visits, specialty visits, urgent care, medications, maternity care and cancer treatments.

You just pay co-pays for each visit as there are no deductibles to meet.

Then, if you need one of the 55 big-ticket procedures like heart surgery, ear tubes or hip replacement, you can buy add-on insurance for an additional premium.

“You pay that extra premium only for that service, and as soon as you consume that service and you pay off what that premium is, you go back to that base level premium you were paying before,” said Miller.

Bind also hopes to save consumers money through transparency and choice.

The Bind app gives the cost upfront for any service, visit or procedure a customer needs.



Hays Travel launches discount app for 5,400 employees
By Louron Pratt (employee benefits UK)

Sunderland-based travel agent chain Hays Travel has launched a new discount app for its 5,400 employees.

The app, provided by Reward Me Now, offers staff up to 18% savings at more than 130 high street retailers, including Debenhams, Currys PC World, and Virgin Experience Days, with no set-up fee or monthly charges.

Launched in late January 2020, the app will be available to all employees as soon as they start working at Hays Travel. In the first week following its launch, 54% of employees signed up to the new service.



Court Quashes Fidelity 401(k) 'Kickback' Claims
FINANCIAL ADVISER IQ
Fidelity has won a legal challenge to fees it collects from certain non-Fidelity fund companies that distribute products through its 401(k) recordkeeping platform.

Last year, plaintiffs from several retirement plans, including that of mobile phone service provider T-Mobile, accused Fidelity of breaching its fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by charging fund providers the so-called “infrastructure fees” for access to its FundsNetwork system.

Fund providers paid the fees — up to 0.15% of their total fund assets — if they fell short of certain other revenue-sharing provisions. Fidelity said the charges help cover the cost of various recordkeeping, trading and settlement and shareholder communications costs, as reported by FA-IQ sister publication Ignites.

But plaintiffs argued that the added fees got passed along to plan participants. In effect, they alleged, Fidelity set the compensation as it controlled the plans’ menus.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that Fidelity didn’t control plan compensation and thus couldn’t be held liable under Erisa.



WorkGenius pulls in $7m as it positions itself to reach profitability
FINTECH GLOBAL

WorkGenius, an AI powered platform helping companies to manage and pay freelancers, has scored $7m in a round which will take the startup to profitability in 2021, it claims.

The round was backed by angel investors including Axel Sven Springer, the grandson of publishing company founder Axel Springer and John Jahr, the grandson of publishing company founder Gruner + Jahr. Oliver Heine, a member on Axel Springer’s advisory board, also contributed to the round.

US-based WorkGenius leverages AI technology to help companies find, manage and pay freelance workers within 28 minutes, it claims.

A client simply engages with the WorkGenius project management consultants explaining needs, tasks involved, and delivery milestones. WorkGenius will then build a posting for the role and the AI will automatically match qualified professionals to the ad within 28 minutes.



Spain’s Cobee raises €2.1M for its employee benefits app and payment card
Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch

Cobee, a Spanish fintech startup that has developed an employee benefit management app and accompanying card, has closed €2.1 million in “pre-Series A” funding.

The round was co-led by Speedinvest and Target Global. Other backers include Chris Bouwer (an early employee of Adyen) and existing investors Encomenda Smart Capital, BStartup (Banco Sabadell), Lanai Partners and Abac Nest.

Founded in 2018 by Borja Aranguren and Daniel Olea, Cobee aims to help employees “leverage better economic performance” from their salary via a range of employee benefits and discounts offered through the platform. These are managed within the Cobee app and redeemed through use of the Cobee payment card.

The draw for companies signing up is that Cobee already claims its platform has higher engagement than many existing employee benefit programmes. And by being a fully digital and automated solution, there is considerably less administration needed to manage the programme.



Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Oprah all use the 5-hour rule. Here's how this powerful habit works.
Michael Simmons / BUSINESS INSIDER

Many leaders try and set aside at least an hour a day for things like deliberate practice or learning — what the author calls a "five-hour rule."

These hours could be spent reading — Oprah credits much of her success to that, and leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are prolific readers.

Others, like Jack Dorsey, set aside that time for reflecting and thinking.

In the article "Malcolm Gladwell got us wrong," the researchers behind the 10,000-hour rule set the record straight: Different fields require different amounts of deliberate practice to become world class.

If 10,000 hours isn't an absolute rule that applies across fields, what does it really take to become world-class in the world of work?

Over the past year, I've explored the personal history of many widely admired business leaders like Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg to understand how they apply the principles of deliberate practice.

What I've done does not qualify as an academic study, but it does reveal a surprising pattern.

Many of these leaders, despite being extremely busy, set aside at least an hour a day (or five hours a week) over their entire career for activities that could be classified as deliberate practice or learning.

I call this phenomenon the five-hour rule.

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