The Pension Time Bomb: $400 Trillion by 2050
Published 2 years ago on April 16, 2018 By Jeff Desjardins / Visual Capitalist

Are governments making promises about pensions that they might not be able to keep?

According to an analysis by the World Economic Forum (WEF), there was a combined retirement savings gap in excess of $70 trillion in 2015, spread between eight major economies..

The WEF says the deficit is growing by $28 billion every 24 hours – and if nothing is done to slow the growth rate, the deficit will reach $400 trillion by 2050, or about five times the size of the global economy today.

The group of economies studied: Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Japan, India, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States.



Telemedicine Could Be the Help Postpartum Parents Need
Postpartum mental health matters—and digital appointments are helping many new moms get the right care.
By Cassie Shortsleeve

lemedicine—being seen, diagnosed, or treated digitally by a healthcare professional—is officially more than a buzzword: From 2005 to 2014, digital visits saw an average 52 percent in growth per year; today, about 76 percent of U.S. hospitals connect patients to practitioners this way; by 2025, telemedicine is projected to be more than a $64 billion business in this country.

And while it can be useful for many people and an array of health conditions (everything from the common cold to mental health), telemedicine is proving increasingly popular with a particular population: Postpartum women.

"About 25 percent of the sessions in my practice with pregnant, perinatal loss, and postpartum moms are done virtually through a HIPAA-compliant, encrypted video platform," says Katayune Kaeni, Psy.D., a Claremont, California-based psychologist specializing in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.

NXT   When we started NXT our goal was to find 10 companies using technolgoy to change the life, health, and employee benefits industry, and put them live in front of 100 investors and strategic relationships to tell their story. What we found is that companies innovating "Product Evolution" have as compelling a story as the InsurTech group. NXT LIfe, Health & Employee Benefits Investor Forum LEARN MORE...

Employers Turning to Pharmacy Benefit Managers to Fight Employees’ Prescription Drug Abuse
Michael A. Perry / workforce.com

The opioid epidemic offers an example of a preventable, complex public health and safety issue that has arisen due to a perfect storm of causative factors. Consequently, it requires multiple stakeholders to develop and deliver an effective solution to help lower costs and improve patient health outcomes. These stakeholders include health care providers, pharmacies, drug manufacturers and even employers.

However, the pharmacy benefit manager is one player in the opioid crisis that fills a critical role by employing clinical programs to ensure safe and appropriate utilization of medications. The PBM is a third-party administrator of prescription drug programs and primarily responsible for contracting with pharmacies for network services, negotiating discounts and rebates with drug manufacturers, developing and maintaining the plan’s list of covered drugs (a formulary), and processing and paying prescription drug claims.



Just 6% of Companies Offer Childcare Benefits to Employees
by Michael Guta / Small Business TRENDS

A new survey and report from Clutch reveal just 6% of companies offer childcare benefits to their employees. When you take into account, 70% of families in the U.S. spend more than 10% of their income on childcare, the scope of the problem becomes clear.

The cost is so high, in the report Clutch says child care in 33 states and the District of Columbia is more expensive than college.

Small businesses with a small workforce or limited budget can’t always pay for childcare along with other benefits. But there are creative ways to provide your employees with the support they need when it comes to childcare. And this support is one of the best ways to keep your employees longer, especially with historically low unemployment rates.

The survey for this report was carried out with the participation of 505 full-time U.S. employees. Thirty-one percent of these respondents are small businesses with 1 to 50 employees.



Consumer experience platform Zipari bags $22.5m in Series B
FINTECH GLOBAL

Zipari, a consumer experience platform for the health insurance space, has bagged $22.5m in a Series B round.

Early-stage investor Vertical Venture Partners led the round, with contributions also coming from Health Velocity Capital, HealthWorx and Horizon Velocity Capital.

Plans for the capital are to widen distribution channels, expand partner integrations and scale the development of its product lines.

Zipari, a New York-based startup, was built with the goal of helping insurers improve engagements with customers. Its technology offers real-time insights at every touchpoint and provides broker, employee and member portals and recommendation assistants.

Health Velocity partner Saurabh Bhansali said, “Too much of healthcare still relies on the telephone when increasingly individuals want to interact digitally. Zipari enables health plans to offer a digital solution to its members, providers, and brokers with a common underlying database that creates a seamless, more cost effective, and consumer-friendly experience.



Northrup Grumman Agrees to Settle 401(k) Excessive Fee Suit
THE NATIONAL LAW REVIEW

Northrop Grumman has agreed to pay $12,375,000 to settle a class action brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) by participants in its 401(k) plan. The parties reached the initial terms of this settlement last year minutes before the start of the trial.

The plaintiffs alleged in their complaint that the company’s administration of the 401(k) plan harmed the plan’s participants by using a costly management strategy for a risky investment fund and by using plan assets to overpay for administrative services.

The long legal battle began in 2006 with a related lawsuit alleging that the plan was paying excessive administrative fees. That case was settled for $16,750,000 in 2017, but it limited the damages period to May 11, 2009. The participants of the 401(k) plan alleged that they continued to be charged excessive fees after the damages period in the first lawsuit ended and the current class action was brought in 2016 on similar claims. By August 2019, the only claim that remained in the case asserted that Northrop violated its fiduciary duties by choosing an active-management style for the emerging markets fund instead of a low-cost passive-management style. Northrop switched to a passive management style in 2014.