PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ERISA Forfeiture Litigation
ERISA Blog | Changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rules A Primer for Self-Insured Group Health Plans
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What the J&J Case Means for Plan Administrators
The No Surprises Act: A Cost Saving Opportunity for Employer Plan Sponsors
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New Federal Rule Aims to Hold Investment Advisors to a Higher Standard
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 – Top-Hat Plans — Special Edition Podcast
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 - Health and Welfare Plan Developments — Special Edition Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Partial Plan Terminations
Podcast Episode 189: Adding Context to Compliance and Color To Your Legal Practice
#WorkforceWednesday: SECURE Act 2.0 - What 401(k) Plan Sponsors Need to Know - Employment Law This Week®
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Plan Administrators’ 2022 Year-End Checklist
An Inside Look as a Juror - FCRA Focus Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Multiemployer Plans
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Court Decisions Impacting Plan Sponsors and Fiduciaries
(A)ESOP's Fables - The Income and Estate Tax-Free ESOP
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What Constitutes Plan Assets Under ERISA?
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Group Health Plan Service Provider Compensation Disclosure Requirements
Update and Discussion on Legal and Practical Issues
Welcome to 'Just Compensation'
#WorkforceWednesday: SCOTUS in Review, Biden Acts to Limit Non-Competes, NY HERO Act Model Safety Plans - Employment Law This Week®
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Insurance Insights, a gathering of notable legal developments and trends relevant to the insurance industry. In this issue, the California Supreme Court covers COVID-19 claims, Georgia...more
This month’s Friday Five explores decisions addressing the burden of proving accidental death, policy language and “any occupation” disability, an interpleader case where the insurer was not dismissed from the case, the...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced two settlements with major insurance companies this month that highlight the importance of employers avoiding the collection of group life insurance premiums from employees until...more
Life Policy Lapse Shortly Before Insured’s Death - In Simon v. USAA Life Insurance Co. (Mar. 29, 2024), the insurer denied death benefits under a term life insurance policy, which had lapsed for nonpayment of premium two...more
The DRI Life, Health, and Disability Committee is once again sponsoring a program aimed at providing a basic understanding of the concepts applicable to life, health, and disability litigation. The program, which receives...more
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) requires health plans and insurers to offer mental health coverage in “parity” with a plan’s medical or surgical coverage. In 2024, as the post-COVID era brings a...more
Regulators Hit Jackpot: Off-Channel Communications - Several years before announcing the first “off-channel” communications enforcement action, the SEC and FINRA cautioned broker-dealers and investment advisers about...more
This month’s Friday Five explores recent decisions that range from the effect on disability benefits when medical records are not provided after two appeals, to a case that examines how an award of death benefits is...more
This month’s Friday Five addresses two cases involving disability claims that touch on Covid-19, a Circuit Court ruling for an insurer, a district court ruling that a 20-year-old regulatory settlement precluded an insurer...more
The President and his administration continue to tout their efforts to strengthen coverage for behavioral health care, including significantly increasing behavioral health spending and strengthening parity between physical...more
This month’s Friday Five covers cases relating to: (1) whether claim administrators can recover overpayments through a breach of contract claim under state law; (2) whether claim administrators can rely solely on a claimant’s...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition for certiorari in First Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company v. Giorgio Armani Corporation. Although the headlines typically come when the Supreme Court issues an opinion, its...more
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas recently vacated a portion of the Requirements Related to Surprise Billing, Part II, Interim Final Rule (the “Rule”) regarding the independent dispute resolution (IDR)...more
Six months ago, we cautioned health plans and plan sponsors that states, the federal government, and private litigants were laser focused on Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (“MHPAEA”) compliance. The United...more
Welcome back to the Class Action & MDL Roundup! Our spring edition covers notable class actions from the first quarter of 2021. In this edition, the courts are beginning to split on COVID-19 cases, privacy litigants can’t...more
On this week’s episode, Carla DewBerry and Sarah Carlins discuss a recent California Federal District Court decision in David Wit v. United Behavioral Health, in which the court found that the defendant insurer violated ERISA...more
In Cal. Spine & Neurosurgery Inst. v. Blue Cross of Cal., 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 20533 (9th Cir. June 20, 2020), the Ninth Circuit held that a surgical provider's complaint sufficiently alleged that Blue Cross of California...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, applying California law, has held that an excess insurer could not second-guess the payment decisions of underlying insurers absent a showing of fraud or bad faith, or...more
In recent months, circuit courts across the country have supported insurers’ discretion to deny long-term disability benefits (LTD) under ERISA. Since the beginning of the year, disability plan insurers have prevailed in the...more
A federal district court in Ohio recently attempted to shed some light on when internal communications between an ERISA plan administrator and its in-house counsel are discoverable and when they are protected by the...more
Welcome back to the Class Action & MDL Roundup! Our summer edition covers notable class actions from the second quarter of 2019. The Supreme Court granted cert on a pair of ERISA cases that revived one ruling thought...more
An employer learned the full cost of ambiguity when a Connecticut federal district court agreed with an employee’s widow that the word “maximum” was ambiguous in the company’s life insurance plan, thus making the widow...more
This month's Friday Five covers cases addressing what constitutes a self-inflicted injury under an AD&D policy, the intersection of choice of law provisions and preemption, a cautionary decision about subjective pain cases,...more
The First Circuit held that a plaintiff failed to timely exhaust her administrative remedies under a long-term disability plan because the plan’s 180-day time limit for submitting appeals commenced on the date the plaintiff...more
The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a decision establishing coverage for a lawsuit filed by pension funds investors against an investment manager for allegedly mismanaging and squandering the pension funds’...more