HOUSTON—An oil production platform that suffered a large fire in the Gulf of Mexico is covered by Oil Insurance Ltd., according to the energy industry mutual insurer's website. more >>

HATTERAS ISLAND, N.C. (Reuters)—Hurricane Earl took aim at North Carolina Thursday and was on track to lash its barrier islands with dangerous winds and pounding surf before cutting a path up the U.S. East Coast to Canada. more >>

SEOUL, South Korea (Bloomberg)—Three people were killed after Tropical Storm Kompasu came ashore in South Korea, lashing Seoul with rain and strong winds that knocked out power, forced flight cancellations and delayed the opening of schools. more >>

Average annual premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance grew just 3% this year for family coverage, but employees’ share of those costs surged 14%, according to a survey released Thursday. more >>

(Reuters)—Pension obligations of British companies have grown to "unprecedented" levels due to falling yields on government bonds, a consultancy unit of Aon Corp. warned on Thursday. more >>

PROVIDENCE, R.I. more >>

LINCOLN, Neb.—Nebraska Department of Insurance Director Ann Frohman plans to step down in October to pursue private-sector opportunities, according to the state's governor. more >>

DOHA, Qatar—The Qatar Financial Center Regulatory Authority has authorized Kane L.L.C. to establish the first captive management company in the Qatar Financial Center. more >>

ALBANY, N.Y.—The New York State Workers' Compensation Board on Wednesday proposed a 30% increase in workers compensation medical provider fees. more >>

HONG KONG (Bloomberg)—AIA Group Ltd., the main Asia unit of American International Group Inc., submitted preliminary documents to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for an initial public offering, according to two people familiar with the filing. more >>

Excerpt: "UnitedHealth Group Inc. and its former chief executive William McGuire will pay $925 million to resolve an investor class-action lawsuit accusing the health insurer of improperly backdating stock options, Reuters reports. . . . Given that there was 'significant risk' to the plaintiffs recovering nothing had the case been fully tried, 'the $925.5 million settlement amount is substantial,' U.S. District Court Judge James Rosenbaum wrote in his 26-page order dated August 10, according to Reuters." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required) more >>

It's a difficult concept to grasp -- that at a time of massive unemployment, good paying jobs remain unfilled. And yet despite unemployment in nearly 30 states running 8 percent or higher, nearly 2 million jobs remain vacant because employers can't find enough qualified workers. Earlier this year, I wrote a piece of the Business2Business Magazine about the growing gap between the skills of the unemployed and the skill requirements of the jobs. These issues were also discussed in a recent article in theNew York Times on job retraining and another article in USA Today. What’s the basic problem?  A Washington Post article suggests that maybe it’s job retraining that needs to be retooled. Some high unemployment America faces today is cyclical, meaning that hard times wiped out jobs that will be restored when conditions improve. But many of the job losses this time were structural – we just don’t need them anymore or other countries can do them better or cheaper or both.  So the difference between this ...
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General Andrew Cuomo began a fraud probe against Prudential (the second largest life insurer in the country) and MetLife (the largest). In a statement, he built on seemingly unanimous outrage: 'It is shocking and plain wrong for these multinational life more >>

A reader writes:

I had a conversation with the HR Director about something happening in my department. She went to my boss with the issue, citing me as the source. This was not an official complaint by me, as we were not in her office but in the lunchroom. However, I considered conversations with HR professionals to be in confidence. Was I in error?
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m. central time. Interested parties can listen to the conference call via a live audio webcast at www.aon.com. About Aon Aon Corporation (NYSE: AON) is a leading global provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human more >>

andy_griffith_health_law Washington (SmartAboutHealth) - Classic television star Andy Griffith, best known for The Andy Griffith Show, has made his return to TV to support a new health care law. The new health care law has been proposed ... more >>

BCBS Tennessee concludes hard drive theft investigation Examiner.com BCBS members who could be affected by the breach have been offered a year of free credit monitoring. Chattanooga police spokeswoman Jerri Weary told the ... more >>

1 in 4 women suffering 'unreasonable' workplace stress Hr Morning Just over half (56%) of the women polled said their stress level was reasonable, according to the Kenexa Research Institute. But more than one in four (26%) ... more >>

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Healthcare Breaches Spin Out Of Control InformationWeek

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Daily Journal of Commerce

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NAIC: Commissioners Not Caving to Industry 'Pressure' on Medical Loss Ratios

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The immaculate grounds of Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland is home to several famous California millionaires, including Douglas Ghirardelli (1817-1894), James Folger (1835-1889) and Kaiser Permanente founder Henry Kaiser (1882-1967). ... more >>

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This past week a member of my husband’s team suffered a devastating loss: his one-year-old daughter died, which sent my husband — his manager — looking into the company’s bereavement policy.

It was three days.

Three to five days is standard, so this isn’t a knock against his company. This is a knock against blanket HR policies which don’t get discussed much (by those outside of HR) until, that is, you come slamming up against one of them.

Play it out: what parent would be worth anything after only three days? What company would want to ask a parent to return after only three days? (Yes, I know people can use their PTO bank — tell me that drastically changes the situation.)

Here’s a talented, committed individual dealing with an unforeseen and isolated crisis. The policy, which looked great on paper, is now nonsensical and soulless.

Sure, HR policies are designed

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Highmark Blue Shield’s recent shifting of its small-group business to its for-profit subsidiary has led to a wave of complaints from employers, and an investigation into each by regulators, according to Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario.

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Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL) is committed to offering the broadest possible range of products for our members, as well as to maintaining its strong financial position. Thus, on Friday, July 16, 2010, it filed a new ... more >>

Richard L. Santalesa analyzes the recent settlement between Health Net and the Connecticut Attorney General's Office. It didn't take long for an Attorney. more >>

The New York Times: "The Senate broke a stalemate on Tuesday over extending unemployment benefits for Americans who have been out of work for six months or more, voting to override Republican objections that the bill's costs would add to the federal deficit" (Hulse, 7/20)... more >>

Health insurer UnitedHealth Group reported a second quarter profit jump of 31 percent as enrollment in the insurer's plans went up, The Associated Press/The New York Times reports. "The company's total enrollment grew about 1 percent, to 32.5 million compared with last year, with gains in Medicare and Medicaid businesses offsetting commercial health insurance losses... more >>

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is facing a class-action lawsuit in Colorado accusing the company "of conspiring to limit medical care for injured employees in a bid to save money," The Wall Street Journal reports. "The lawsuit alleges that Wal-Mart broke state and federal laws by using a subsidiary to control the treatment for employees with workplace injuries... more >>

©2010 Google KXJZ News Report questions Blue Cross surplus Boston Globe “Consumers are really struggling right now, and the Blue Cross health plans are sitting on a lot of money.'' But Tara Murray, a spokeswoman for Blue Cross ... Consumer group: Insurers kept surplus while hiking premiums USA Today Nonprofit health insurers hoard cash MarketWatch Blue Cross reaps surpluses while rates rise: report Reuters UK Drug Store News - TREND - The New Mexico Independent all 200 news articles » more >>

Hilb Family Returns to Its Insurance Broker Roots Insurance News Net - 26 minutes ago A well-known name in the world of insurance brokers has been resurrected with the birth of the Hilb Group. Robert H. Hilb, the former founder, chief executive officer and chairman of Hilb Rogal ... more >>

The St. Louis office of Lockton, the world's largest privately owned independent insurance brokerage, today announced that Robert W. Reiff has agreed to join Lockton as the office's Chief Operating Officer. more >>

23 pages. Excerpt: "The purpose of this paper is to quantify the benefits of workshifting -- specifically working from home -- has for employers, employees, and the community. Citrix Online coined the term 'workshifting'to describe the growing trend to working from anywhere other than a traditional office through the use of web-based technology. The older and more traditional terms for this are teleworking or even telecommuting." (Telework Research Network) more >>

Kathleen Sebelius, the Obama administration's point person for health-care reform, started her political career as an abortion-rights Democrat in conservative Kansas. more >>

Anyone who has spent much time managing knows this to be a management truism you can’t avoid: you learn more from a bad boss than you do from a good one.

I was struck by this again last weekend while reading the latest ‘Corner Office” column in The New York Times. It was a Q&A; with Dawn Lepore, the chairwoman and CEO of Drugstore.com, and she had a lot to say about being a manager and building a company. It was all good, if fairly predictable, management talk, but then she said something interesting when asked if she had any bosses who were big influences:

I had a very bad boss early in my career. She was older than I was. She’d started in the financial

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Speakers at the ALI-ABA’s annual conference on insurance and financial services regulation in Chicago offered extensive commentary on changes in enforcement strategies for insurance and securities fraud, in light of recent overhauls to the regulatory scheme. Representative panelists from the SEC and FINRA commented on federal enforcement strategies, while a state insurance commissioner’s representative opined about updates and changes in state-level enforcement.

Changes in securities, insurance regulation affecting enforcement via IFAwebnews.

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As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals.

Insurers pushing plans that limit choice of doctor via IFAwebnews.

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Study: EHR Systems Are Top Priority for Healthcare IT more >>

A recently issued interim final regulation provides much anticipated guidance to health plans that qualify for "grandfathered" status under federal health care reform legislation. While the Affordable Care Act requires all health plans to comply with certain provisions of the law, plans that existed as of March 23, 2010 are exempt from some of the new requirements. The new regulation allows plans to make routine cost adjustments to keep pace with inflation, make modest adjustments to existing benefits, voluntarily adopt new consumer protections under the new law, and make change to comply with other state or federal laws. However, plans will lose their grandfathered status if they chose to make significant changes that reduce benefits or increase costs to participants. Specifically, compared to coverage in effect on March 23, 2010, grandfathered plans cannot: Significantly cut or reduce benefits for specific conditions, for example diabetes, cystic fibrosis or HIV/AIDS Raise co-insurance ... more >>

Senate Democrats say that with the senator taking over the seat vacated by the death of Robert Byrd, they should finally have enough votes to pass an extension to unemployment and COBRA benefits.

On July 20, the Senate will swear in Carte Goodwin

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MetLife Study Highlights

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NEW YORK----Willis Group Holdings , the global insurance broker, stepped up its industry education campaign against contingent commissions today by distributing a third-party white paper in this week’s issue of Business Insurance that highlights in greater detail than ever the conflicts of interest created by the controversial payments. more >>

By Marc Effron and Miriam Ort

Through our corporate and consulting experience, we have identified four talent-building barriers that organizations create for themselves and then regularly stumble over. These barriers explain why line executives’ exhortations and HR’s actions to build talent are not translating into increased talent quality and depth.

Creating Needless Complexity

When you consider the simple intent behind most talent processes, it can be challenging to understand why a line manager experiences so much complexity. A simple process like setting goals often becomes a multipage, headache-inducing exercise and in doing so puts a huge barrier in the way of increasing organizations’ performance.

Where organizations go wrong is that they fail to balance complexity with value as they build these processes. It is not that the additional components layered on — from highly detailed competency

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What are the positive and negative views for employers about implementing medical tourism into their fully insured and self-funded healthcare plans? What incentives are used to encourage patients to travel overseas for care ... more >>

HRH founder ramps up new middle-market brokerage Business Insurance - 3 minutes ago GLEN ALLEN, Va.—A familiar family name re-entered the middle-market insurance brokerage space last week, aiming to become a dominant East Coast player through an aggressive growth-by-acquisition ... more >>

Nearly a third of physicians of responding to a nationwide survey said they would not report other physicians who were "significantly impaired or otherwise incompetent to practice" because of such factors as mental disorders or substance abuse, study says. more >>

The State Of The CEO: Guardedly Optimistic Forbes Also in July the insurance broker Aon ( AOC - news - people ) agreed to buy the human resources firm Hewitt Associates ( HEW - news - people ) in a cash and ... more >>

Aon Corp , the world's largest insurance brokerage, said it will acquire human-resource service company Hewitt Associates Inc for about $4.9 billion in cash and stock to beef up its consulting business. more >>

Excerpt: "The extent of this communication may vary, certainly. At the most basic level, companies can consider a message to all employees that assures them that management is currently working with health and benefits experts to assess the potential implications of the new legislation on benefits offerings . . . ." (Human Resource Executive Online) more >>

Well, it was just a matter of time before ADP scooped up another leading HR service delivery solution.  The announcement of the ADP acquisition of Workscape says, “the acquisition will significantly expand ADP’s presence within the benefits marketplace for large, complex organizations.”

Workscape serves a broad client base, including a number of Fortune 250 companies (and quite a few Findley Davies clients), and provides solutions to more than 3.5 million users with services deployed in over 180 countries, 48 currencies and 70 languages. Clearly, this acquisition will significantly expand ADP’s presence within the benefits marketplace for large, complex organizations in the short term.  The key to this news will be how well ADP actually integrates Workscape’s services into their solution mix over the long term.  Time will tell…

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Employers still adding wellness programs

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The We're-the-Best Syndrome, an American Affliction

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Leppy111, thanks for the sub and your right the insurance co don't like the single payer idea because we wouldn't need their insurance policies. Our tax dollars would pay for any medical needs we might have. But because medical cost is ... more >>

We recently had an employee resign to follow his spouse to another state; she had obtained an exceptional opportunity essential for her career. Like most of our employees who, except for personal circumstances, would choose to stay in our employ, he asked about telecommuting. Sometimes, it's an option, depending on the employee and the job he does in the company.

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Document Dump: Former Marsh Execs' Convictions Upset Over Failure to Defense Evidence Corporate Counsel - 18 minutes ago A New York state judge has tossed the felony convictions of two former Marsh & McLennan executives after finding that the state AG's office failed to turn over to the defense potentially ... more >>

Democrats know that pitching their plan as a means to extend coverage to the uninsured is not enough: They must convince middle-income Americans who already have insurance that they, too, will end up with a better deal under the ... more >>

George Cloutier's recent article in Entrepreneur was seriously silly, but it stimulated some good conversation about what a boss's job is. more >>

So I have to assume that the pain you're inflicting on your health savings account (HSA) customers has escaped your notice. Unfortunately, that represents a severe lack of oversight on your parts. Recently, I blogged about your failure ... more >>

Google makes a deal China, but at what cost? After months of tension, Google announced today that Beijing will renew its license to operate in mainland China. Google had previously refused orders to censor its search results and pulled some of its Chinese operations. Under the agreement, Google can keep offering limited services in China and send users to Google's uncensored Hong Kong-based ... more >>

Great Job.

Really good idea.

Top-notch work.

You’ve no doubt heard yourself compliment people this way many times. And it makes you feel like a good manager. After all, the experts all tell us to praise, praise, praise because employees are starving for recognition.

Unfortunately, nothing in management is simple. And the praise you’re giving employees could be having precisely the OPPOSITE effect that you’re intending. That’s right.

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This is a forum for my observations about a variety of human resources topics and to discuss and question current human resources practices. I want to keep the good things about HR and dump the things that stink. ... more >>

I put-up a new post over at HBR this morning, which is the 4th in what will ultimately be 12 Things the Good Bosses Believe.  This fourth belief builds on research showing that the best bosses strike the middle ground between being too assertive and not assertive enough -- the press their people hard enough to motivate and guide them, but stop short of being overbearing or micromanaging to the point of pissing-off followers or undermining their confidence or work.  As I say in the post, this requires much flexibility, and is one reason that perhaps the central idea in Good Boss, Bad Boss is that the best bosses are in tune with what it feels like to work for them -- which means in this case to

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kwgn.com WellPoint Security Breach Put At Risk Information For 470000 Nationwide ... Hartford Courant (blog) The breach only affects those who used the company's Web portal to apply for individual-market health insurance through WellPoint subsidiaries, ... Anthem Blue Cross Data Breach May Affect 230000 Applicants Insurance News Net (press release) 230000 Health Insurance Customers Had Their Personal Info Compromised Softpedia 30000 Coloradans at risk for ID theft after Anthem security breach Fox 31 KDVR.com Insurance Networking News - IT Business Edge (blog) tutte le notizie (7) » more >>

Performance Reviews by the Numbers Wall Street Journal based Taleo , which makes performance-management software. "There will always be some degree of subjectivity, but it becomes much harder to hide behind how ... more >>