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,...

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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...

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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

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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

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 ...

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 ...

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%) ...

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). ...

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...

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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.

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 ...

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.

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)...

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...

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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...

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©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...

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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 ...

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.

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....

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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...

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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...

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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.

Study: EHR Systems Are Top Priority for Healthcare IT

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...

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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.

Joe Manchin

On July 20, the Senate will swear in Carte Goodwin

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.

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...

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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 ...

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.

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 ...

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.

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...

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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,...

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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...

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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 ...

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...

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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,...

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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. ...

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...

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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...

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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 ...