Category Archives: Insurance / Employee Benefits

By Maureen Werther

What would happen to a business if an unforeseen disaster struck? Are businesses prepared to weather the storm and rebuild without breaking the bank? Is a business eligible for business interruption insurance?

Those are some important questions business owners need to know about their coverage.

Business interruption insurance is the part of a policy helps businesses that may suffer damage from a fire, flood, or other type of disaster. It can be as important to your business as fire insurance.

provided by

Sherry Finkel Murphy MS, RICP

The ability to grab and hold on to the best talent is crucial to the long-term success of any business.

One of the most effective ways to keep employees engaged and motivated is by offering them a carefully crafted benefits plan. Along with salary, it’s what employees look at most carefully when deciding whether to join and stay with a firm.

When you give your employees the benefits they value, they’ll likely be more productive, miss fewer workdays and have a higher commitment to helping you build your business. In fact, the LIFE Foundation reports that three in four workers consider benefits a decisive factor in weighing job opportunities.

By Breanna L. Lundy

You may not be aware of it, but September is Life Insurance Awareness Month. Of course, you probably recognize, at least in a general sense, the importance of life insurance, but do you know the various ways in which it can help you?

Life insurance can play a sizable role in your ability to achieve some important financial goals, such as these:

Helping your family maintain its lifestyle.

If you are married and have young children at home, you and your spouse may need to work. If you were no longer around and your earnings were gone, could your family still afford to live as they do now? Adequate life insurance can help them preserve their lifestyle.

Capital Financial Group Inc., headquartered at 89 Saratoga Ave.  in South Glens Falls, recently rebranded as the Employee Benefits Division of Upstate Agency LLC, its sister agency.

Both Upstate and Capital have been part of the Arrow Financial Corp. family of companies, which includes Glens Falls National Bank and Saratoga National Bank, for many years.

The joining of Capital under the Upstate brand seeks to deliver more value to the customer through efficiency and synergy.

By Susan E. Campbell

When companies cut back on traditional employee benefits, such as the 15-year trend in vanishing pension plans, decisions may not be based exclusively on economics.

Many of the non-traditional types of benefits now appearing in the workplace are in response to changes in the age, lifestyles and preferences of today’s employees.

There are not enough Generation X-ers to take the place of baby boomers as they retire and leave the work force. Boomer children will. About 60 percent of the workforce in 2020 is expected to be made up of millennials, or Generation Y, those born in the two decades before 2000.

Now in their 20s to late 30s, millennials have different priorities from their parents or even the generation that preceded theirs, said Gail Hamel, owner of Hamel Resources LLC in Lake George.

“In general, younger people today aren’t thinking about retirement,” said Hamel. “They live in the moment because of the world in which they were raised.”

Another major traditional benefit, health coverage, continues to experience cutbacks in the employer-paid portion compared to the percentage covered for baby boomers.

“But no one knows where health care will be even months from now,” said Hamel. “Gen Y is more concerned with just getting a career started.”

The insurance industry is intensifying its efforts related to information security and has established guiding principles to protect retained policyholder data. The Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of New York (IIABNY), New York Insurance Association (NYIA) and Professional Insurance...

By Amelia M. KlEIN Health insurance premiums are expected to increase by double-digit percentages for 2017. What are you going to do about it? Many employers will choose to increase deductibles, co-payments and/or coinsurance amounts in order to reduce...

Rose Miller is the president of Pinnacle Human Resources LLC. Courtesy Pinnacle Human Resources LLC By Rose Miller Benefits are a very important issue for current and potential employees. In past years, surveys show employees place a higher importance...

by Michael Cruz Place an ad, screen resumes, develop a short list, interview applicants, screen out unqualified people, check references, make an offer to the survivor. Repeat. These are bad hiring practices. Bad, because any conscientious business owner who...