Employee Benefits

Proposals have come to light from the group risk industry that some form of income protection cover could be included as part of pension auto-enrolment. Owain Thomas investigates.

The government's highly anticipated consultation into zero-hours contracts closed last month and a number of organisations put forward their recommendations. Hannah Uttley rounds up the responses.

From June, all employers will have a duty to consider ‘reasonable' requests for flexible working from employees. But how much cultural change will this bring about to workplaces? Hannah Uttley examines whether the new rules will have the desired impact....

A committee of MPs has called for zero-hours contracts to be scrapped across the UK, as it says the use of such contracts is creating a two-tier workforce.

Employers understand group income protection (GIP) best when receiving financial advice, but otherwise ignorance is widespread, according to Canada Life statistics.

"The salary sacrifice model seems to fit quite well with what we do for people in looking beyond just their salary to what else we can add and how else we can keep people engaged," explains Lexington people manager Emma Langford.

Twice as many British households are deemed financially vulnerable as financially secure, while more than half of households have experienced financial difficulties in the last twelve months, a global survey has found.

Employers should play a greater role in educating workers about financial risks and facilitating access to protection products, according to thinktank Demos.

The insurance industry is capable of cost effectively delivering the Chancellor's ‘retirement advice for all' pledge, but passing the "impartially test" would be challenging, Otto Thoresen has told MPs.

Almost half (48%) of UK companies do not believe the benefit programmes they have in place today will be fit for purpose in 2020, a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit reveals.