Nevin's Data "Points"

While I appreciate the convenience of gift cards, giving them always feels a bit lazy. As a recipient, however, I very much appreciate the flexibility and the freedom to buy, within the limits of the card, pretty much anything—sometimes things for which I wouldn’t even have thought to ask much less buy for myself. And, arguably, in at least a couple of cases, things I SHOULDN’T have bought, and probably wouldn’t have bought, if it hadn’t felt like “free” money. That very human inclination to spend our own money more judiciously than what we are given underpins the growing interest in consumer-directed health plans, such as the now decade-old health savings account (HSA), or its slightly older cousin, the health reimbursement arrangement, or HRA [i] . Both are designed to provide workers the ability to pay for health care-related expenses with funds drawn from the account – and yet, EBRI’s 2013 Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey (CEHCS ) [ii] found evidence that adults with

My first car wasn’t anything special, other than it was my first car. It was an older model Ford, ran reasonably well, with one small problem— it went through oil almost as quickly as it did gasoline. At first I attributed that to being a function of the car’s age, but as the leakage grew, I eventually dealt with it by keeping a couple of quarts of oil in the trunk “just in case.” Eventually, I took the car to a dealership—but by the time they finished estimating the cost of a head gasket repair, let’s just say that, even on my limited budget, I could buy a LOT of oil by the quart, over a long period of time, and still be ahead financially. “Leakage”—the withdrawal of retirement savings via loan or distribution prior to retirement— is a matter of ongoing discussion among employers, regulators, and policy makers alike. In fact, EBRI Research Director Jack VanDerhei was recently asked to present findings on “The Impact of Leakages on 401(k) Accumulations at Retirement Age” to the ERISA

My wife is fond of recounting one of our early dates when we ran out of gas.  Now, we were in the heart of a Chicago suburb at the time, not the middle of nowhere, and while the hour was late, I continue to maintain that it was a simple case of my misreading the gas gauge in a relatively new car with which I hadn’t yet gained a full appreciation for just how far I could push such things.  My wife, of course, has always accused me of a more “nefarious” purpose. It would be more difficult to explain such an outcome these days.  We’ve gone from vehicles that simply had a floating gauge and a range of red at the 1/8 tank line, to those that have a solid and then a blinking yellow light, to ones that beep and flash and tell you how many miles you have left before you run out. As inconvenient as running out of gas late at night can be, it surely pales in comparison to the prospects of running short of money in retirement.  EBRI has, for more than a decade now, used highly sophisticated

Much has been made of the so-called employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act, and its postponements. Of course, as a recent EBRI publication points out, the mandate (currently slated to be enforced effective in 2015) applies only to employers with 50 or more full-time workers – and most of these employers already offer health coverage to their workers. Last year, 91 percent of employers with 50–199 workers offered coverage, as did 99 percent of employers with 200 or more workers, according to the EBRI analysis. However, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) defines a full-time employee as one who works 30 or more hours per week, on average – well below the 40-hour-week threshold typically associated with full-time employment. As a result, there is concern that employers may respond by cutting back on health coverage for part-time workers or by decreasing part-timer hours to keep them below the 30-hour-week threshold. The EBRI report notes that, overall, there

Much is made these days of the application of behavioral finance and the implications for plan design, as well as the role of choice architecture in helping workers make “better” (if not more informed) benefit decisions.  Valuable as these insights have been, I think much of human behavior (or lack thereof) in these matters can be more simply explained. What’s at work is a concept a friend of mine described to me more than 20 years ago – something he called “the hassle factor.”  It was a philosophy he routinely applied in many aspects of his personal and professional life.  Simply stated, presented with a choice between doing something that is hard, time-consuming, complicated, or even inconvenient, and doing something else, my friend – and, in fairness, human beings generally seem to be – inclined to opt for the latter. Of course, the “hassle factor” CAN be trumped by exterior needs or forces, as anyone who has endured the long lines at the DMV or sat through the background musi