Now that the 4th of July has passed…

it’s time to eat healthy again. Here’s a quick and easy chili recipe you can make in under 30 minutes:

2 tablespoons canola oil
2 lbs of ground turkey
1 cups of your favorite salsa as spicy or as mild as you like
2 cans drained black beans
1 can drained kidney beans
1 medium onion finely chopped
2 packages taco seasoning (1 ounce each)
Cut jalapeño slices for a spicy touch (optional)

1. Heat oil in large, nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat. Add ground turkey. Stir breaking up ground turkey into small pieces.
2. Stir in all other ingredients once ground turkey is no longer pink
3. Simmer on medium heat for about 20 minutes stirring occasionally.

Serve chili as a main dish with a low fat shredded cheese topping or as a side dipping with your favorite WHOLE GRAIN tortilla chips! Enjoy!

4th of July Newsletter

Summer is underway, and with it comes days at the beach, picnics, weekends at the pool, thunderstorms, wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and power outages. All of these have one thing in common, INSURANCE! We’ve seen an unfortunate number of natural disasters in the first half of 2011, many of which occurred in parts of the country and urban areas where this type of weather rarely occurs. Rare or not, it’s a good time to give pause and reconsider how you’re protecting your business and what contingency plans you have in place if something like the Springfield Tornado were to hit Connecticut.

To make a donation to help our friends in Western Massachusetts, you can text 90999 on your mobile phone, and a $10 donation to the Red Cross will be added to your cell phone bill. Other options here

Does your company have a disaster recovery plan in place?
LIG has an arrangement with Agility Recovery Services if you’d like to use a provider for all of the logistics. They have some great webinars coming up in July under the EVENTS tab on their site

Has your Business Interruption Worksheet been updated recently?
Good article from INC Magazine on what this coverage is, and why you should have it. The first time you fill out this form it can be daunting, but we’re always just a phone call away.
An article written by another member of a Broker network that we belong to, specifically talking about Business Interruption for Non-Profits.

Can you communicate with your employees & clients when the power goes out?
If the power is expected to be out for more than a day, is there a number your employees can call to see if they are required to work? Are you utilizing social media channels like twitter or facebook to alert employees, clients, and vendors? Give us a call, we’ve got a few ideas!

Besides planning for disaster, there are a few things coming down the pike on the Employee Benefits side of things for CT businesses that we thought we’d let you know about prior to January 1, 2012. (We’ll also be putting out a comprehensive list of ALL the changes on both the State and Federal level that will be effective on 1/1/2012)

1. Changes in HSA Contribution Limits, Deductibles, and RXs for buying OTC medication with HSA, FSA, or HRA funds Article Here

2. Metlife’s 9th Annual Employee Benefits Trends Study Article & Commentary here

Have you seen one of those weird black and white squares like the one below in a magazine or a billboard lately? Download a QR code reader to your smartphone and take a picture of the image below. Pretty cool, huh? We can help you create one to provide a very cool link to your website or any other online area you’d like to direct clients, prospects, or vendors to? Article about success stories other companies have had using this technology..
 

And in closing, we’d love to have you follow us, friend us, and check out the other places we post info online.

www.litchfiedlins.com

www.constructionriskadvisors.com

www.facebook.com/constructionRA

http://www.facebook.com/LitchfieldInsuranceGroup

http://twitter.com/LitchfieldIG

http://www.twitter.com/fixyourrisk

Thanks again for reading. We hope you have a safe and happy 4th of July weekend,
Your friends at Litchfield Insurance Group

Metlife 9th Annual EE Benefits Trends Study

Metlife 9th annual Employee-Benefits-Trends-Study

Assistant VP of Benefits at LIG, Bill Latz gives his thoughts on the study:

Attached is the MetLife 9th Annual Study of Employee Benefit Trends. I find it to be engaging, insightful and feel it is worth your time to thumb through this study.

 

The message in this study is that while the economic downturn has forced employers to focus on business operations; a job market recovery might mean interruption by way of employee turnover. Your benefits platform may not be enough to sustain employee loyalty when this happens.  After years of reduced staffing and increased workloads, 1 in 3 employees surveyed hope to be working for another employer.

Looking forward, the new benefits economy may mean re-sizing for a more customized benefits package; after all, for the first time ever, there are 4 generations of employees working together, each with unique needs and communication styles.

 

In the new benefits economy, employees are willing to chose and pay for benefits that matter to them.  While 43% of surveyed employers said their employees are not interested in this, 52% of surveyed employees responded that they are interested.  The Litchfield Insurance Group benefits team is a strong proponent of voluntary benefits including travel accident, STD, LTD, and life insurance options for employees and their family members. Additionally, voluntary dental programs have improved and where an employer does not provide dental coverage, it has also increased in popularity with the employees.

 

The study shows that benefits communications impacts employee satisfaction and loyalty.  A multi-dimensional approach can address the 4 different generational styles now in the workplace.

 

Lastly, the Great Recession has created widespread employee financial stress and retirement anxiety.  Wellness initiatives should address the financial well-being of employees since muscle tension, headaches, depression, and heart problems are linked to this heightened financial anxiety.

 

Especially affected are the Young Boomers, many who are in line for future career advancement in leadership positions.  This sandwich generation has particular concerns as they try to save for retirement while possibly funding college and caring for elderly parents.

 

We are available to assist you in providing tools to address these concerns and help you design your “Blueprint of Benefits”.  Please turn to us for online benefits resources, voluntary benefits, wellness programs, HR resources, and benefit plan funding alternatives. Together, we can begin to address the challenges of the “New Benefits Economy”

 

Regards,

 

Bill Latz

Assistant VP

Litchfield Insurance Group

Litchfield Insurance Group Risk Reduction Report #1

You are receiving this email message because you’re one of our favorite clients or a company we would love to have as a client. Even though you provided us with your email address, we want to make sure that you are OK receiving informative email updates from us periodically. (no more than two a month)

We won’t be annoying with our email communication. We’ll only send information that will be worthwhile such as invitations to our upcoming seminars, safety tips, legislative updates, wellness initiatives, and information that will help lower your Total Cost of Risk. If you prefer to read our newsletter and special bonus content at your own pace, it will all be archived on LitchfieldIns.com

Since the last time we sent you an update like this , we’ve been busy.
We have built two new websites, started blogging, hopped on the facebook train, and even get our tweet on now and then.

We’d love for you to become a fan of Litchfield Insurance Group and Construction Risk Advisors on Facebook if you’re into that kind of thing.

For our contractors, we built a site just for you: www.constructionriskadvisors.com

Here’s a few helpful links to give you an idea of what type of info we’ll be sending you:
Distracted Driving Webinar hosted by our friends at CNA click here
New OSHA Recordkeeping Webtool click here
How to Stay Safe in Hot Weather click here

If you do not want to receive emails from us, please click the link at the bottom of this email to remove yourself from our communications.

Thanks for your continued support,
Your Friends at the Litchfield Insurance Group

The Info Archive

The purpose of this “blog” is to be reference library for all the pertinent info we’d like to share with our clients, future clients, and friends in the industry. All of our newsletters will also be archived here, so if you remember reading something that you wanted to revisit, it’ll be waiting for you here. Thanks for reading.

Milliman: Family health costs double since 2002

Milliman: Family health costs double since 2002
May 11, 2011 By Jenny Ivy Tags
Consulting and actuarial firm Milliman reported Wednesday a typical family of four is paying $1,319 more this year for a preferred provider organization (PPO) plan — the highest dollar amount increase in the history of its Milliman Medical Index (MMI).
However, the 2011 MMI cost is $19,393, an increase of 7.3 percent over 2010, which is the lowest annual rate of increase in more than a decade.
Nevertheless, says Lorraine Mayne, Milliman principal and consulting actuary, “In 2002, American families had healthcare costs of $9,235, and those costs have now doubled in fewer than nine years. As costs continue to grow—and even as the cost trend decelerates—the total cost of care for American families constitutes a larger and larger portion of the household budget.”
Of the $1,319 total cost increase, employers bore $641 while employees shouldered the rest—$403 in payroll contributions and $275 in additional cost sharing.
“As has been the case in four of the last five years, employees are paying a larger share of the cost increase than their employers,” said Scott Weltz, consulting actuary at Milliman. “That said, in absolute dollars, both employers and employees have shouldered approximately the same amount of additional costs since 2006, with employers absorbing $3,023 and employees absorbing $2,988.”
In addition to looking at costs on a nationwide basis, the Milliman Medical Index also examines 14 geographic areas.
“This year, six of the fourteen cities we studied exceeded $20,000 in total costs for a typical family of four,” said Milliman principal and consulting actuary Chris Girod. “But we still have several cities, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Seattle, with less than $19,000 in total costs for the typical family. These cost differences result from variation in local practice patterns and from differing costs for health care goods and services.”
To view the complete Milliman Medical Index, go to www.milliman.com,

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