What If My Employer Decides Not to Offer Insurance?

Q.

Our school superintendent says he plans to pay the fines rather than pay for insurance for every school employee. If employers choose to pay the fines, then how do the employees receive health insurance? — Annie Brown
A.
If your employer doesn’t offer coverage, you’d be able buy insurance on the health insurance exchanges that will start up in 2014. You’d also be eligible for premium subsidies if your income is less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

But some policy experts question whether, when push comes to shove, employers will actually drop health insurance coverage. For one thing, at a school that employs teachers who are under union contract, the superintendent can’t just make a unilateral decision to discontinue health coverage, said Jennifer Tolbert, an associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

But even without a union contract, there are other factors that come into play. Under the new law, employers aren’t required to offer health insurance. But if they don’t and even one of their employees turns to the health insurance exchange for coverage, the employer would be subject to a $2,000 per employee penalty. Depending on the value of the health plan, paying the penalty might be cheaper than offering health insurance,  Ms. Tolbert said. But even if that were the case, “They’ll lose the tax deduction for providing insurance, and at the end of the day employees will leave outright or demand a higher salary because they’re losing a major benefit,” she said.

Have a question about the new health care law? Send it to health_feedback@nytimes.com.

Corporate Governance for Insurers

At the end of 2009 the Indian insurance market regulator, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), issued its Corporate Governance Guidelines for Insurers. This is a lengthy and comprehensive document containing a combination of specific measures and general guidelines to be adopted and implemented by Indian insurers by April 1 2010. The guidelines are supplemental to the requirements of the Companies Act 1956, the Insurance Act 1938 and any other law on the basis that where any provision of the guidelines conflicts with another enactment, that other enactment will prevail. However, where the requirements of the guidelines are more rigorous, they will take precedence.

There seems to be a number of driving forces behind these guidelines, including:

• the unprecedented revelations of the financial irregularities at Satyam;
• the impact of the credit crunch on a number of overseas insurers; and
• the perceived importance of the financial sector in general to Indian economic growth and the public at large.

Of equal importance is the fact that in the coming years a number of Indian insurers are expected to come to market for the first time. According to Section 6AA of the Insurance Act, the existing position is that the Indian promoter of an Indian insurer cannot hold more than 26% of the paid-up equity. For a newly formed insurer, a holding above 26% must be gradually brought down to 26%, starting at the latest from the 10th year after the insurer commenced business. A number of insurers will be commencing their 10th year in the near future and the IRDA has already announced that it intends to publish its guidelines on insurers making public offerings soon.

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Insurance plan for high-risk areas considered

A NEW insurance scheme for people most at risk from flooding could be established by the Government, Tanaiste Mary Coughlan said yesterday.

Ms Coughlan said that she was willing to examine a national insurance scheme for those who lived in flood-prone areas .

The scheme would be backed by the Government and designed for those whose homes are so at-risk of being flooded that insurance companies are unwilling to sign them up.

The €10m flood aid package will not go to people who have their property insured

- Aidan O'Connor

Irish Independent

Five life insurance groups unite to battle Moore’s assertions on COLI

Five life insurance industry organizations have joined to combat what they say is a mischaracterization of corporate-owned life insurance by Michael Moore in his movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

The documentary includes a small focus on COLI, which has led to additional media reports alleging that business owners are obtaining life insurance policies on their low-level employees without their knowledge. Nearly two decades ago, some business owners used COLI to obtain broad coverage of low-level workers – “janitor’s insurance” or “dead peasant’s insurance” – not for the corporate insurance plan benefits, but as a tax shelter.

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What Makes a Great Health Insurance Plan Great

There are many important things in life, but one that most would agree on is good health. Without good health, the quality of life suffers. So, finding the perfect health insurance should be top priority in your life. The best and most affordable plans are out there ready to be found and used; the only problem is you just have to find them.

A Great Plan have these common key components:

• In case of a catastrophic medical event in your life, you will need to make sure you have coverage that is high enough to meet and exceed those types of situations.
• An out-of-pocket expense account, or also known as self insured, you need to be self insured up to a specified dollar amount that you have in mind.
• Leave the amount coverage unlimited in certain areas such as daily room charges or surgical procedures. If this need did arise, the insurance will cover any unforeseen surgeries or extra days in the hospital room.
• You need to be able to see any type of specialist regardless of global location and without having to get referred.
• With so much traveling these days, global insurance coverage is a must.
  
  thanks to Brent Cross

• Global Health Asia plans provide comprehensive medical insurance coverage for you and your family wherever you live, work or play.
  
  Personal Medical Insurance Plans
  Family Medical Insurance Plans
  Corporate Health Insurance
  Insurance Plan for Expats

Insurance Against Financial Fear

When the economy stumbles, panic can drive matters from bad to worse. Economist Ricardo Caballero has a new plan to keep investment markets free of fear.

Just one year ago, a worldwide panic was unfolding: Financial markets froze after the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers, leaving businesses without lenders as the economy drastically slowed.

How can we stave off such fear-enhanced episodes in the future? Ricardo Caballero, MIT's Ford International Professor of Economics, offers a distinctive solution: Government-issued investment insurance for banks.

"A crisis is a mixture of real problems and a panic component, which at the worst moment of a crisis can be larger than the underlying problems," says Caballero, who presented the plan at the Federal Reserve's high-profile Annual Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in late August. "The proposal is a sort of financial defibrilator, to be ready in case it is needed."

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Corporate travel cover – is it worth it?

For those whose job entails a lot of foreign travel, corporate insurance plan or business travel insurance
can be a worthwhile insurance product. Not only could this tailored insurance option save you and your company money, its cover is likely to meet more of your specific business needs than a standard travel insurance package. This page asks – why choose corporate travel cover over a regular travel insurance policy?

Staff replacement cover

A feature truly unique to this type of insurance product covers the cost of having a colleague flown out to attend an important meeting, presentation or conference in your stead should you be unable to attend yourself due to illness or injury.

You will have to provide proof that your illness or injury was serious enough to prevent your attendance however. Certain corporate travel insurance also covers you if it’s a close relative that falls ill or is seriously injured, and you subsequently have to miss your important appointment.

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Business and Corporate Life Insurance

By Sharon Taylor

Various forms of life insurance can serve as a means of indemnification or protection against loss through death of employees and other valuable officials within a business. In other words, corporate insurance plan and business life insurance are becoming popular concepts as more and more high profile companies accept the effectiveness of no medical life insurance and other forms of life insurance as a valuable form of asset protection.

There are many businesses that rely heavily upon their top officials, including managers, CEOs and other individuals who are at the top of the company and who much of the company's success can be attributed to. These key members of the company's staff can be considered to be truly vital to the operations of the company, and without them, the company may falter or fail all together. This is especially true, of course, for businesses that are individually owned and operated by the key staff member in question.

Business and corporate no medical term life insurance policies are gaining rapidly in popularity as more companies realize how truly vital it is that they protect their greatest assets: their people. Successful businesses require heavily upon the personal equation in order to see success.

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