Like so many things the government does, the CHIP Model notice is a required notice for employers to send to their employees. Of course, just how as an employer you are supposed to know that you are required to give this notice is another mystery.

The notice states that if you, as an employer, offer health insurance, you are required to give your employees notification that they may receive premium assistance from the CHIPS program to help pay for their coverage.

In the state of Texas the number to call is 1-800-440-0493 or an employee can go to the website Texas Health Insurance Premium Payment (HIPP) program website. The ability to comply is fairly simple. You can find the CHIP notice here and print on your letterhead and pass out to all the employees. Alternately you can send it out via email as well.

Grandfathered Health Plans

So many of our clients are wondering what the effect of keeping their plans grandfathered is under the new PPACA (aka Health Insurance Reform).  For a review let me give you just the facts ma’am, as Joe Friday would say:

To be grandfathered your health plan must:

1. Be in existence on March 23, 2010
2. NOT increase the Deductible or Out-of –Pocket more than 15% plus medical inflation
3. NOT the copay more than 15% plus medical inflation
4. NOT decrease the employer contribution more than 5%

A change in carrier will not necessarily result in a loss of grandfathered status as long as the above requirements are met.

So what happens if an employer group plan loses its grandfathered status?

1. The new external review process is available to members of the plan
2. Preventative care is covered at 100% no deductible or copay
3. Nondiscrimination rules apply so contributions and benefits cannot be different for different classes of people.
4. Members have the right to select a primary care doctor, pediatrician or ob-gyn without a referral.

Other aspects of Health Insurance reform that are in effect regardless of grandfathered status are:

1. Restriction on imposing pre-existing condition limitations on children under the age of 19.
2. Prohibition on rescission of coverage after coverage begins except in the case of fraud.
3. No annual or lifetime limits on plans
4. Coverage for adult children under the age of 26 must be provided by the health plan

The difficulty in deciding whether to forgo grandfathering lies in not knowing how the loss of grandfathering will affect costs going forward. Unfortunately, Congress is not helping as we have heard everything from repeal to de-funding to court challenges that have declared the law unconstitutional by some and upheld its constitutionality by others.

So how can we help?

We analyze each situation and chart a course based on what we know now. In some cases the increase that our clients are receiving make it impossible to continue with the current level of benefits and maintain the grandfathered status. Others have faired much better and are able to keep the same level of benefits and contribution level and avoid the loss of their grandfathered status for another year.

Stay tuned and we will keep you informed on the of the latest developments as they arise.

If you have any additional questions or if you would like to speak to someone about grandfathering a plan, give us a call at (361) 855-2500 or visit our Facebook fan page and post your question on our wall. We will be more than delighted to help you.

Excellence

Putting forth our greatest effort and possessing exceptional qualities in high degree to provide superior service to our clients.

Have an expectation of Excellence. That is the phrase I most often state. Whether it is of ourselves, our partner carriers, or one of our vendors that services us, we live with an expectation of excellence. Does that mean that mistakes are not tolerated?

HEAVENS NO

In 1992, I made a New Year’s Resolution to make as many mistakes as possible. It is actually the only New Year’s Resolution I have kept for the whole year. Excellence does not come about by doing something perfectly the first time out, but by doing it as well as you can and improving on it each time, finding a better way to service our customers, and a more efficient way to market our services and products.

So what happens when I put out to my clients that one of our Core Values is Excellence and then we mess up? The first action I take is to own it. Take responsibility for what I didn’t do right and then get to work to correct it. I have had few folks in my life who have gotten upset with me when I admitted my mistake and then worked to make it right. Obviously I cannot go on making the same mistake over and over again and expect someone to understand the 2^nd, 5^th or 10^th time I do it.  I correct it the first time and make sure that I do not allow my mistake to happen again.

So it may seem a little odd to blog about excellence and have the meat of the blog talking about mistakes. If you think so, I would be interested in hearing your take on Excellence.

What I do know is having Excellence as a Core Value means that we are never stationary. We are striving to learn, improve and grow, to be all that we can be.

If you are like many single men and women, you may feel that you don’t need life insurance.  You may want to reconsider.  In all likelihood, your untimely death might cause a financial impact on one or more family members left behind.  Life insurance could help them meet financial responsibilities.  For example, sometimes, education loans are taken out in another family member’s name or with a parent as a co-signer; same with auto loans.  You would also most likely have final expenses; life insurance can be used to cover those obligations.  If you are a single parent you may be the sole financial support for your child(ren) and what would happen to them if something happened to you?

First, your income would die with you.  Second, be sure you have a will in place including a named guardian.  Finally, if you are a surviving spouse, you may have substantial assets and want to protect them from estate taxation (actually replace the lost taxes with dollars) so that you can pass on your estate to your children and grand children rather than to the IRS.

If you are single, don’t overlook the possible need for life insurance.  It may be possible to lock in the rate for many years; you can also protect your future insurability.  Life insurance builds a pool of money leveraging your current cash flow, that allows those left behind to meet obligations and possibly to change their future story.

Have any questions? Call us at 361-855-2500.

We share with you our 10 reasons to plan for retirement. Enjoy!

10.  I don’t want to HAVE to work as a greeter or fry cook; We want to give back to our community;

9.  We love to visit our kids but would rather not live with them;

8.  Our kids love for us to visit but would rather not have us live with them;

7.  We don’t know where we will live but we hope to have the choice of where and how to live;

6.  We don’t want any debt during retirement years;

5.  We want to have peace of mind;

4.  Will Social Security be there and how much will we receive;

3.  We want to enjoy our retirement, not dread it;

2.  My wife and I have fun being together and traveling together;

1.  We like having choices and dreaming big dreams!

New Year’s Resolution

So…how are you doing on your New Year’s Resolution(s)?  If you are doing well and are on track, great, I am proud of you, really!  If you faltered, join the club.  The good news is it is still early in the year and you can get on track…one day at a time. So get over it and start again; you may want to re-evaluate your goal or resolution; make it something you can break into smaller pieces so you can see some improvement and gain momentum and do it one day at a time.  Like many things, goal setting and achieving are a process.

Many of us celebrate the Lenten Season and have a second chance (for basically everything).  During Lent, I try to give something up and add something in that is good for me, like an extra spiritual reading.  This year, I’m going to try extra hard to stick to my diet during Lent and maybe it will give me the push to reach and sustain my weight goal.  I am also going to do an extra daily reading with my wife – my love and my best friend.

Whether your goal relates to financial, weight, or spiritual matters, don’t give up. Here are 3 goal tracking tools that can help you succeed.

Lifetick

Lifetick makes goal setting not only easy, but achievable. Complete with reminders that you can set yourself and a journal that captures everything you do and continue to do.

Mint

Mint brings all your financial accounts together online, automatically categorizes your transactions, lets you set budgets, and even helps you achieve your savings goal.

Goalmigo

Goalmigo is a website that helps you achieve your goals. You can set your goal on Goalmigo, track your progress, share your goal with friends who support you, join online groups and get tips from people with similar goals.

Key Investment Questions

Investing can be a simple, but not necessarily easy task.  The basic investing questions to consider are:

1. What is my goal?
2. What is my time horizon?
3. What is my risk tolerance?

First, you should establish, very clearly, what your goal for investing is; saving for a specific goal like a car, for a child’s college education, for an emergency fund, or saving for retirement are very different.  They involve different time lines, different tax situations, and different emotional responses.  So consider your goal; how important is it; how much do you need; how much can you afford to put towards the goal on a regular basis; and what other options you may have to reach the goal.

Second, consider your time horizon.  How long do I have to save for the goal?  Is the time line set or is it adjustable?  Some things may vary, some may not.  If you are saving for a child’s college education that is a pretty easy start date in most cases.  You may want to retire at 62, but is that a realistic goal and is it a have to or a would like to?

Third, what is my risk tolerance?  How much risk can I stomach?  What kind of returns am I hoping for?    Investing is a marriage of risk and returns and we are all different.  Most people can tolerate some risk but they don’t want to lose any money.  There are ways to mitigate risk in investing, but it is still there.  When you invest on a monthly basis it is called dollar cost averaging; that may help smooth out the ride of gains and losses.  You also may have the ability to diversify, to not put all of your eggs in one basket; to allocate across a broad range of investments.

These questions and answers are extremely important but certainly not all inclusive of what you will need when considering investing.  You have numerous resources at your finger tips; especially websites for banks, mutual fund companies, and online searches.   Our website has numerous calculators that may be of assistance to you. You can also call our office to speak to an advisor at (361) 855-2500.

Long Term Care

Long Term Care is one of the hottest topics in the planning, insurance, and care giving industries today.  I don’t know about you but my wife and I are in the sandwich generation.  A few years ago, we had two mothers and a father in nursing care and three children in some form of higher education at the same time.  It was a challenge and a strain financially, physically, and mentally.

Fortunately, long term care insurance can be a huge help on the financial, physical, and mental sides.  According to Rosalynn Carter, Helping Yourself Help Others:  A Book For Caregivers, there are four kinds of people who need long term care insurance:  someone who is a caregiver; someone who was a caregiver; someone who will be a caregiver; and someone who will need care themselves; pretty all encompassing.  Have you thought about your long term care?

For more information or if you would like to talk to someone about long term care give us a call at (361) 855-2500 or visit our website.

Harmony

A consistent balance of respect, consensus, opinion and action resulting in a pleasant and productive work environment.

What is your favorite tune? What part do you listen for? Is it the melody that stays in your head and you hear when you are thinking of nothing else? Or is the blend of voices and instruments that you hear welling up in your mind’s ear that reminds of you of the feeling created by a beautifully crafted harmony?

Have you watched with admiration the execution of a finely turned double play, third to second to first with the umpire putting the exclamation point?

YOUR OUT!!!!

The achievement of harmony is a process that is developed with training and practice, listening for the person 2 rows over from you in the choir singing their part that blends with you and makes the music that the audience has come to hear.

I have no illusions that what we do here on a day to day basis is always reflective of this kind of performance, but I do believe that it is worth striving for. For when it does happen our clients know it, they feel it, and they appreciate the effort that we have made to see that theirs is a concert experience that is unforgettable.

The next time you are listening to the music and you find your foot tapping or fingers drumming, remember that is the experience the composer was thinking of when they wrote that piece and smile.

That is the experience that we look for here. We are grateful to be a part of helping our clients’ employees live in harmony with themselves and the world around them.

Do you know where your assets will go when you die? If you have life insurance policies, IRA’s, 401k’s, annuities, or other retirement or insurance products, you probably named a specific beneficiary.

Those designations may have huge effects on the orderly passing of your belongings and your estate. The state coffers are filled with dormant or unclaimed assets; naming proper beneficiaries can allow the assets to pass outside of probate (but not estate taxes). Beneficiary designations are named for life and may need to be updated; different carriers and products have different rules.

Check your accounts or check with your agent, advisor, or human resources department to update your designated beneficiaries. If you need help, we have organizational forms that will jog your memory about assets that you may have forgotten or that may not come easily to mind; the forms may be extremely useful to you and your heirs.

Devote a little time to planning ahead, in all phases of your life. If you would like to receive a beneficiary worksheet or an asset organizer worksheet please contact us by phone at 361-855-2500, by email deborah@arvakinsurancegroup.com , or you can use our contact information on our website.