“Across the country, businesses already strapped by the economy to turn a profit are sacrificing or scaling back employee health insurance plans because of their escalating costs,” The Associated Press reports.

Some stark statistics shed light on the problem.

• Small business pays 18% more than the largest firms for comparable insurance
• Many small businesses are facing double-digit rate hikes (10-15% in Ohio)
• According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 46% of businesses with 3-9 employees offer health insurance, down from 58% in 2002

Read more here…

AccuQuote, a leader in providing term life insurance quotes, leverages blogs, online videos, podcasts, and tweets to generate leads and revenue.

In the video below, the company’s VP of marketing and business development, Sean Cheyney, offers examples of how the company uses social medial and measures success.

The following are some key takeaways:

• Life Insurance Education – Give something of value to the community, try to avoid posts that contain a “call to action” message
• Recruiting – Use social media to recruit and connect, save money over traditional channels
• Strategic Partnerships – Use social media to drive strategic partnerships, use an integrated approach
• PR – Use Twitter, follow reporters that typically cover the company and industry and allow them to follow you
• Tools – Use tools like TweetDeck and Twitter Search to help manage your social media efforts. Applications like SiteCatalyst from Omniture help track and measure success.

Social Media for the Analytic Marketer, by Sean Cheyney; presented by GasPedal and the Social Media Business Council from GasPedal on Vimeo.

Additional interesting information:

• The company has been blogging for 4-5 years
• Company bloggers currently post 5-7 educational articles each week
• The CEO contributes several posts each week
• An estimated 2% of all leads are a result of organic traffic because of their blogging efforts
• Within 1.5 years of the blog’s launch, leads resulted in mid-six figures in revenue

Full-time nursing home care averages $69,000 to $78,000 per year or 8 hours per day of home health care can cost $43,000 to $70,000 annually.

Almost one in four of those surveyed say they will rely on family and friends to help pay for long-term care costs. Others mistakenly believe their health insurance coverage or Medicare will help pay their costs.

Results of a new LIFE Foundation survey: What Americans say they would rely on most to help pay for long-term care services if they found themselves in need of assistance with the basic tasks of daily living, such as bathing, eating and dressing.

Read more at Medical News Today

Visit the LIFE Foundation website

Are you retired or thinking about retirement?

Ask yourself, “Will my loved ones suffer a financial loss if I die tomorrow?”

A “no” answer usually suggests that there is no need for life insurance, but Forbes.com recommends that you think twice before giving up your policy.

Young adults will soon have to deal with the cost of government mandated health insurance.

Currently, a large percentage of young adults are uninsured. According to the CDC:

• Young adults between the ages of 20 and 24 are the most likely to be uninsured
• 30% of those between 18 and 29 are uninsured

In an attempt to curb this trend, Wisconsin has passed a law allowing people up to age 27 to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans unless they have access to cheaper plans through their employers.

Read more here…

Are you thinking about purchasing a life insurance policy? Here are five different personal uses for life insurance to consider.

1. Survivor protection – This is probably the most common use for life insurance. In addition to other needs, life insurance provides the money needed for both funeral and living expenses (i.e. income replacement).
2. Estate creation – You can create an estate with relatively little money in the event of a premature death.
3. Cash accumulation – Cash accumulation typically begins in year 3 and can become significant over time.
4. Liquidity – Cash loans can be obtained by using the policy as collateral (assuming it has cash value).
5. Estate conversion – Life insurance can help offset the costs of federal or state estate taxes.

An interesting question on health insurance mandates – Does the U.S. Constitution allow the government to require uninsured Americans to buy medical insurance or impose a tax penalty if they refuse?

Both the House and Senate health bills would mandate the purchase of health insurance to help subsidize the program and offset the cost of adverse selection.

Does Congress have the authority?

Read more here…

(May 11, 2009 - Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Europe)

Individual mandates would help offset the costs associated with adverse selection.

In health insurance, adverse selection is the tendency of poorer risks to want insurance more often that standard risks (i.e. sick individuals are more likely than healthy to seek out insurance coverage.)

Under a purely voluntary system, most healthy individuals would likely not choose to obtain coverage.  The individuals most likely to enroll (subsidized insurance or otherwise) would be those who are older and/or who are less healthy than average.  People value insurance more if they plan or expect to use it, and are more likely to participate.

Without mandates, adverse selection would most certainly drive up costs for insurers and as a result, premiums would rise sharply.

Individual mandates are an attempt to offset some of the costs associated with adverse selection.

Read more here:

Do Individual Mandates Matter?

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, average family premiums have gone from$6,438 in 2000 to $13,375 in 2009.

In 2008, Ohio employee premium contribution for family coverage was 23 percent or $2,916, leaving the employer with a $9,764 premium bill.

Source: The Kaiser Family Foundation

Where are costs going? According to a Kaiser Family Foundation projection, average premiums for family coverage could range from $24,180 to $30,803 by 2019.

Note: Health insurance premiums projected for 2010-2019 assuming (1) that the average growth in premiums between 1999 and 2009 (8.7%) continues or (2) that the average growth in premiums between 2004 and 2009 (6.1%) continues. Source: Kaiser Family Foundations projections based on data from Kaiser/HRET Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits, 1999-2009.

Taken from “Pulling it Together”: Simple Arithmetic – The Kaiser Foundation

The Kaiser Family Foundation has a website that allows an interactive, side-by-side comparison of the major health care reform proposals currently under consideration. The comparison includes a breakdown of all the key characteristics and plan components including, but not limited to the following.

• Employer and Individual Mandates
• Benefit design
• Financing

Visit the site to run your own comparison.