Insurance Insights: The Cleary Insurance Blog
The Cleary Insurance blog covers insurance, risk management, and financial planning for New England businesses and individuals. Our team of licensed advisors and specialists publishes regular articles on commercial and personal coverage, employee benefits, life and financial planning, and insurance compliance. Browse recent articles below, or use the category filters to find topics relevant to your business or personal situation.
Four Important HR Issues to Monitor for 2016
Employers have new challenges to contend with in 2016, resulting from Supreme Court decisions, federal and state legislation, and actions by federal regulatory agencies. There is a real cost for employers who fail to comply with new laws. For example, the most recent Performance Accountability Report for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), states that victims of discrimination received more than $525 million from private and government workplaces in 2015.
The following are four important issues that should be closely monitored in 2016:
- Overtime Rule Change: The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed a rule to expand who is entitled to overtime pay. Once regulations are finalized, it is possible that many overtime-exempt employees will become eligible unless employers raise their salaries—a move that could cost employers billions of dollars.
- Same-sex Marriage: Since same-sex marriage is now accepted at a federal level, employers are required to provide the same benefits to same-sex couples as they do for opposite-sex couples. Employers must revisit their policies and practices regarding Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), employee benefits, leave policies, marriage statuses and tax information in order to ensure that they treat all married couples equally.
- National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Pursuit of Workplace Policies: The NLRB has been proactive in pursuing employers whose handbook policies can be reasonably interpreted as infringing upon the rights of employees to engage in protected conduct. In doing so, the NLRB has found that certain employer policies, such as those that deal with social media, confidentiality and employee communications, violate employee rights. Because of this development, current workplace policies should be reviewed and drafted carefully to avoid ambiguous language that could be interpreted as interfering with the right to engage in protected, concerted activity.
- Health Care Reform: Many employers are faced with the challenge of complying with the new annual health care reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Applicable large employers (ALEs) and non-ALEs with self-insured plans were required to provide Forms 1095 or 1094 to their employees for the first time starting in 2016 for the 2015 tax year. Penalties for not doing so, or for providing inaccurate information, could be substantial. It is important for employers to know which forms to complete and what information to include.
Employers should also keep an eye on any relevant implications that might emerge as a result of the 2016 presidential election—specifically in regards to the Cadillac tax delay. Should the Cadillac tax go into effect in 2020, employers need to be sure that they are either ready to pay the tax or ready to make necessary changes to their health care plans.
At Cleary, we know how important a comprehensive benefits package can be to your continued success. Give us a call today at 617-723-0700 and we will work with you to create a plan that meets your business objectives, takes into account state and federal laws, and capitalizes on incentives and innovative solutions now being offered.
Client Spotlight: Butler-Dearden
We are pleased to spotlight Butler-Dearden in our winter newsletter. They are a family owned and operated wholesale distributor headquartered in Boylston, Massachusetts.
Butler-Dearden has been providing superior quality, service and value to their customers since 1882. They began as a twine and packaging store and grew into offering janitorial supplies, office papers, packaging materials, and food service supplies. Their state of art facility allows for an efficient operation so they can deliver and maintain the quality customer service they are known for.
They continue to be successful by keeping their core ideal that excellent customer service is the most important product they deliver!
Click here to learn more about them!
Public Private Partnerships
More frequently known as 3-P’s (PPP), Public Private Partnerships are becoming more prevalent as a way to finance, engineer, construct, and operate infrastructure projects across the United States. They have been used in other countries for some time now. For example the EU has had over 260 Billion Euro’s worth of 3P projects since 1990.
PPP involves a contract between a public sector authority and a private party in which the private party provides for a public project and assumes substantial financial, technical, and operational risk of the project. In some cases those end uses of the project bear the cost of of the project rather the the taxpayer. Toll roads are an example of this.
There are a few reasons why these have now taken hold in the United States. First, it is a way for government entities to harness the engineering and technical efficiencies of the private sector to bring projects on line. Second, it allows for the project to be done “off balance sheet” of the government entity. The funding is arranged for by the private sector vehicle implementing the project, although they can sometimes be done “on balance sheet” where the government entity compensates over time but gains substantial deferred cash flows.
As you can guess, the formation and structure of a PPP can be very very complex, daunting, costly, and time consuming for all parties involved. The jury is still out as to their overall success or failure. There haven’t been enough of them in the United States to conclude their viability. However, they aren’t going away any time soon.