by Vikita Poindexter, SPHR

After months of wrangling in Washington, President Obama has signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act- arguably the most far reached piece of social legislation passed in the last several decades. Now, employers around the county are scrambling to figure out what the upcoming changes mean for them and their employers.

It’s a huge challenge, because federal regulators haven’t yet written the rules implementing the new law.  What is clear is that you’re in for some big changes to your healthcare benefits from an extension of dependent coverage and a ban on annual ban lifetime coverage caps, to limits on flexible spending accounts distributions- as well as penalties if you fail to provide the right coverage for your workers.

And you don’t have a lot of time to get ready.  While some of these changes to don’t go into effect until 2014, others will become effective as early as this fall. So what does that mean for you the employer?  Well as if you didn’t have enough to comply with, now you have to get prepared for these changes.

Is it Too Late to have a Post-marital Agreement?

by Sommer C. Horton

You probably heard someone utter the phrase, “He can’t afford to get a divorce because he didn’t have a prenuptial agreement” or “She can’t afford to get a divorce because she had a bad prenuptial agreement.” What is a prenuptial agreement? A prenuptial agreement, also referred to as premarital agreement, is a document that directs how property will be allocated between spouses on one of two triggering events 1) divorce, or 2) death without a valid will or trust that spells out how assets are to be divided among intended beneficiaries and/or legal heirs.  Premarital agreements teach couples about the financial consequences of marriage and are intended to reduce conflict and expense if there is a divorce in the future. 

In California, upon marriage, unless you and your spouse have entered into a valid premarital agreement - anything earned by the efforts of either spouse is owned 50-50 between them. Moreover, if one spouse passes away without a valid Will or Trust, California law dictates how the decedent’s estate will be distributed.  It does not matter, if the distribution is not what the decedent intended to happen to his estate.  Thus, it is really important to have your estate plans and/or premarital or post-marital agreements in place to ensure that your exact wishes will be carried out in the future.