Medicare: Take Advantage of Open Enrollment!

Are you in the best available Medicare plan for your situation? For many Medicare beneficiaries, the answer is no and that can be a costly mistake. A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 71% of Medicare beneficiaries don't research their plan options when Open Enrollment comes around. But Medicare plans can make changes every year. Your current Medicare plan may be changing any of these important items: Deductibles Coinsurance Maximum out-of-pocket costs Premiums Care provider networks Prescription drugs and access. Prescription drug plans are particularly prone to making changes in their formulary of covered drugs, rules under…

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Annual Insurance Review is Crucial to Your Growing Business

As a business owner, do you have the right insurance policy?   Let’s say you started your business 10 years ago with just a small space and computer desk. Today, you have an office full of employees and equipment. If you still have the same insurance coverage as you did a decade ago, or even just a few years ago, the chances are high that you are underinsured.   One of the biggest mistakes owners of growing businesses make is not keeping up their insurance coverage to account for the expanding assets and potential liabilities. To avoid this mistake and…

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Does a Homeowner’s Policy Cover Your Home Business?

Thanks to advances in technology, more and more people are running home-based businesses. But will a homeowner’s policy cover the risks of a home-based business? In nearly every case, the answer is no. The only exception to this might be if a homeowner’s policy has a special endorsement, such as to run a catering company from your home. Yet few companies offer such endorsements. Additionally, some policies may give a very limited amount of coverage for business property, such as a computer. According to the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, roughly 60% of home-based businesses lack adequate business…

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Supply Chain Disruption Lessons from Pandemic

Besides the health and economic devastation that the COVID-19 pandemic has left in its wake, it has also caused supply chain disruptions that have affected a number of industries. The fallout for companies of all types illustrates the fragility of most businesses' supply chains. The pandemic has left retailers with half-empty shelf space because product manufacturers couldn't keep operations going due to raw material or personnel shortages, while a number of carmakers and other manufacturers have had to suspend operations because of a global semiconductor shortage. But it's not only large companies that suffer, and small businesses are especially vulnerable.…

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Working Professionals Don’t Want to Go Back to the Office

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the nation's workforce, and one of the biggest changes is in the amount of people that are now working from home. A new survey has found that the majority of working professionals who were forced to start working remotely due to the pandemic would like to continue to do so after it has subsided, while 29% of professionals said they would quit if their employer decided not to allow telecommuting. The study by LiveCareer.com found that going forward 62% of professionals when looking for jobs in the future would look for companies…

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Are Injuries on Commute or in Parking Lot Covered?

When employees are injured on the job, they are eligible for workers' compensation benefits, but not if the accident occurs on their commute to or from work — in most cases, at least.  But how about if an employee is injured in your parking lot, or while running an errand for you after work? There are two rules that govern at which point a worker is eligible for benefits if they sustain an injury: The 'coming and going' rule Typically, workers' comp benefits won't be paid for injuries sustained during a daily commute. This is known as the "coming and…

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New Rules Clear Up Workers’ Comp, Medicare Conflicts

A new law will make it easier for insurers to settle workers' compensation claims with older workers who are enrolled in Medicare, in an attempt to resolve an issue that can sometimes drive up premiums for affected employers. The law adds transparency by letting workers' comp insurers inquire about whether Medicare may have been used to pay for any part of the claim. Often this is shrouded in secrecy, requiring the insurer to add reserves to the claim to pay for any potential demands from Medicare to recoup outlays it may have made for treatment of the worker. Medicare is…

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DOL Issues New Definition of Independent Contractor

In the last month of the Trump administration, the Labor Department finalized a regulation to clarify for employers which workers are employees and which are independent contractors. Because independent contractors are typically ineligible for employee benefits, businesses have an incentive to classify workers that way. The new regulation's purpose is to make answering the question easier. The regulation employs an "economic reality test" that courts have developed over the years. It asks "whether, as a matter of economic reality, the workers depend upon someone else's business for the opportunity to render service or are in business for themselves." This test…

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