2025 Educational Webcast Calendar

Professional education opportunities offered by the Baldwin Professional Education Connection (BPEC) are detailed in the following 2025 annual broadcast calendar. BPEC courses are typically broadcast live on the last Wednesday of each month at 1:00 pm eastern, 10:00 am pacific. Program participants who attend a live BPEC webcast presentation are eligible to apply for HRCI or SHRM professional continuing education credits. The BPEC’s educational opportunities are offered as a core service for the benefit of clients, prospective clients, and colleagues of Baldwin Risk Partners and its affiliate partnerships located throughout the United States. BPEC programming is developed in-house by the subject matter experts at the Baldwin Regulatory Compliance Collaborative. To the extent a program is supplemented with additional course materials, these items will be distributed to participants via email following the broadcast of the program, and an archive of previously broadcast presentations is available for viewing and downloading.

Interested individuals are encouraged to register early for the BPEC’s educational webcasts. The annual broadcast schedule is published in January of each year, detailing course dates, monthly program topics, and our scheduled speakers for the full calendar year.

Upcoming Webinars:

“Winter Compliance Update: An Overview of Significant Employee Benefits Related Laws, Rulemaking, & Litigation Events on January 29, 2025”.  Please register here to attend.

“Complexities of Jurisdictional Administration of Health & Welfare Plans on February 26, 2025”.  Please register here to attend.

“Cybersecurity Defensive Strategies and Responsive Solutions for Health Plan Administration” on March 26, 2025. Please register here to attend.

2025 Educational Webcast Calendar

Winter Compliance Update: An Overview of Significant Employee Benefits Related Laws, Rulemaking, & Litigation Events Speakers: Nicole Fender & Dan Finnegan Moderator: Marie Smith

January 29, 2025   Register Here

During this timely session, participants will learn aspects of the most significant employee benefit-related events occurring in 2024.

This session is designed as a clearing house for legal, legislative, and litigation related highlights from the most-recent 12-month period. Attendees should expect a fast-paced, summarized digest of benefits-related news and happenings.

Although individual coverage of topics presented in this learning module will be summarized into a digest form, supplemental program materials may be available to provide attendees with additional information and further commentary respecting many of the substantive updates offered during the program.

Complexities of Jurisdictional Administration of Health & Welfare Plans Speakers: Dominique Town & Dan Finnegan Moderator: Marie Smith

February 26, 2025   Register Here

Sponsorship of US-based employee benefits is a complex proposition. Federal laws ranging from the ACA, HIPAA, MHPAEA, COBRA, FMLA, USERRA, ADA, CAA, and other provide for a technically challenging and vast scope of regulation. Add to this already complex environment the intricacies of state statutory law and municipal ordinances, and the proposition of compliance assuredness can easily become overwhelming for the employer.

In this educational webcast, we’ll explore some of the complexities of state and local jurisdictional law, exploring the nuances of these difficult to monitor requirements, as imposed upon employers and plan sponsors. From leave and other coverage requirements, to commuter, parking, and other novel local ordinances, we’ll explore the following:

1. Hawaii Coverage Mandates;
2. Puerto Rico Coverage / Tax Code / Section 125 Issues;
3. Massachusetts Coverage for Ex-spouses;
4. San Francisco Healthcare Security Ordinance;
5. Jurisdictional Commuter Ordinances;
6. Washington Long Term Care;
7. State-level Vaccination Mandates;
8. State-level PBM Mandates; and more.

Cybersecurity Defensive Strategies and Responsive Solutions for Health Plan Administration Speakers: Natashia Wright & Jason Sheffield Moderator: Marie Smith

March 26, 2025   Register Here

The cybercrime threat is real and exponentially growing day-by-day. Employers and benefit plan administrators are generally unprepared to face this crisis because organizations have for far too long siloed technology and people operations. To face this growing threat, employers must integrate essential technology and people operations in ways never considered. Further, employers must understand and develop defensive and responsive mechanisms to fight the cybercrime threat, both for organization resilience and for preservation, not to mention for regulatory and legal compliance.

Fortunately, strategic defensive operations for your organization already exist – they have been developed and tested and are ready for deployment. Join this program to learn the how, what, and when of cybercrime defense for health plan administration.

Attendees of this program will:

1. Define and understand cybercrime as the foremost immediate and decisive threat to the operation and integrity of employee benefit plan administration.
2. Learn to identify types of cybercrime and their variants; in particular, malware deployed for the primary purpose of activating ransomware within a networked environment.
3. Learn and understand core concepts underlying planning, development, implementation, and activation of cybersecurity defensive strategies.
4. Learn and understand the components of responsive breach and post-breach security risk analyses performed upon occurrence of a cybercrime event affecting the organizational technology environment.
5. Understand and apply action steps indicated in the identification, partitioning, termination, and restoration of technology environments impacted by cybercrime events.

Qualifying Life Events and Changes of Election in Tax-qualified Health Plans Speakers: Stephanie Hall & Natashia Wright Moderator: Marie Smith

April 30, 2025   Register Here

Qualifying life events and the accompanying opportunities for changes of annual elections are a frequent cause of headaches for employer plan sponsors. Considering the plethora of laws and regulations governing annual elections, including the Treasury Department’s proposed Section 125 final regulations, HIPAA rules, ACA rules, and others in play, simple mid-year changes of election can wreak havoc on plan-level administration.

In this presentation, our experts will dive into the would of qualifying life events, exploring events triggering election opportunities across multiple areas:

• Section 125 and related rulemaking by the Treasury Department;
• HIPAA Portability and Nondiscrimination;
• CHIP;
• COBRA;
• Medicare; and,
• The Affordable Care Act.

Illustrated through multiple hypotheticals, this program will explore the nuances of qualifying life events from the perspective of the employer plan sponsor.

Attendees of this program will:

1. Learn the types of qualifying events required under several different laws and regulations;
2. Learn and understand the appropriate methodology and language for memorializing a plan’s QLE’s in its governing plan documents;
3. Learn and understand the effects associated with the occurrence of certain events upon a participant’s annual/qualifying elections;
4. Learn the plan sponsor’s obligations related to timing of life events, notifications, and effectuation of mid-year and other qualifying changes.
5. Learn and understand the negative consequences associated with permitting mid-year election changes on an exception basis, absent the occurrence of a qualifying life event.

Understanding Individual Contribution Health Reimbursement Arrangements (“ICHRAs”) Speakers: Paul Van Brunt & Nicole Fender Moderator: Marie Smith

May 28, 2025   Register Here

While the conventional business practice is to offer health benefits only to full-time employees, adding part-time, variable hour, seasonal, or academic interns and student workers, and other disqualified workers to traditional group health plans is often cost-prohibitive or prohibited. However, there is a relatively new option that allows employers to extend benefits to more types of employees, helping attract and retain talent in the process – and without overextending budgets. It’s called an individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement (or “ICHRA”).

In this program, attendees will explore the process of designing and implementing an ICHRA, from the nuts-and-bolts analytic perspective, this program will introduce the ICHRA benefit funding vehicle, diving into topics like:

1. What is an ICHRA plan?
2. How are an ICHRA work?
3. Who may sponsor an ICHRA?
4. Who is eligible to participate in an ICHRA?
5. Is an ICHRA a COBRA eligible benefit program?
6. How is an ICHRA terminated?

Designing and Maintaining a Generationally Focused and Situationally Responsive Platform of Benefit Offerings Speakers: Natashia Wright & Dominique Town Moderator: Marie Smith

June 25, 2025   Register Here

The benefits expectations and needs of a generationally diverse workforce can be difficult to understand, and even more difficult to administer. An aged fifty-five worker may look to their employer expecting robust healthcare coverage, retirement readiness tools, and other income preservation resources; however the expectations of a twenty-five year old worker may stand in stark contrast to these expectations to a worker early in their career, as these workers are likely looking to build a family, seeking to purchase their first home, and struggling to resolve their accrued academic debt. To be sure, vanguard employer destinations understand and administer a total rewards platform that is both responsive and flexible across the generations of workers they employ.

In this timely and practical program, our subject matter compliance experts will define the new generations of workers, giving life to the demands and expectations of a generationally diverse workforce. Offering step-by-step design modelling and creative, engaging communication campaign techniques, this program will dive into the following subject matter:

1. What are the new generations of workers – how are they defined?
2. What are the expectations and demands of each generation of workers?3
3. What are the impediments to building and maintaining a generationally diverse workforce?
4. How does an employer build a generationally diverse total rewards platform?
5. What legislative and regulatory vehicles are available to compound an employer’s efforts to maintain a generationally appropriate total rewards platform?

Understanding & Responding to Active Substance Use Disorder in the Workplace Speakers: Jason Sheffield & Natashia Wright Moderator: Marie Smith

July 30, 2025   Register Here

The effects of active substance use disorder (“SUD”) across the US has reached epidemic levels and in no place are the effects of this crisis more palpable than in the workplace. 59.277 million or 21.4% of people 12 and over have used illegal drugs or misused prescription drugs within the last year. SUD can cost as much as $81 billion in absenteeism, presenteeism, loss productivity, higher healthcare bills, and workers’ compensation claims. And while 75% of employers say substance use is prevalent among their employees, only 17% feel prepared to address the issue.

Join us for this informative and timely program where we will dive into the heart of the SUD crisis, learning strategies and tactical operations an employer may utilize to both promote a drugfree workplace environment, all the while bolstering its responsive mechanisms to provide the treatment and recovery support mechanisms essential to identifying, reducing, and effectively mitigating the effects of active SUD in the workplace.

Attendees of the program will:

1. Define and understand substance use disorder (“SUD”) as one of the foremost and decisive threats to the health and safety of an organization’s workers.
2. Learn to identify common signs and symptoms of active SUD in the workplace environment.
3. Learn and understand the employer obligations, duties, and rights for addressing active workplace SUD, as afforded by the laws of ADA, MHPAEA, and HIPAA.
4. Learn the fundamentals of an effective workplace SUD response system, including a drugfree workplace program, enhanced Employee Assistance Plan, and effective offerings of account-based products.
5. Learn and understand the components of a comprehensive drugfree workplace program, administered as both a deterrent and as a responsive mechanism to the effects of active SUD in the workplace environment.

Absence Management Strategies and Solutions for Middle-Market Employers Speakers: Kevin Curran, CLU® & Taylor Morales Moderator: Marie Smith

August 27, 2025   Register Here

Employee populations continue to trend from being regionally defined to borderless by nature. Human Resource teams are struggling to keep pace with constantly expanding leave legislation and the rigor required to manage, track, and report employee leave.

Historically, Enterprise employers have been the primary users of third-party Absence Management solutions. By 2026, more than 25% of states will have mandated statutory disability (“SD”) and paid family & medical leave programs (“PFML”). The added regulatory and administrative burden is forcing middle-market employers to do their due diligence on the solutions available to alleviate their growing absence management burden.

Attendees of this program will:

1. Explore the statutory landscape of SD and PFML programs across the USA, quickly traversing the history of these initiatives, the current statutory and regulatory environment, and glean details respecting prospective programs launching in 2026.
2. Identify and define the value proposition of the four absence management options available to employers, including:
   • Insource;
   • Co-Source;
   • Outsource with stand-alone absence management provider; and,
   • Outsource absence management through a group disability vendor
3. Compare and contrast the capabilities, processes, and costs associated with each of the above models.
4. Learn to identify your company’s attributes that help determine the ideal service model and vendor partner.
5. Understand the required planning, implementation timeline, and your ongoing role in an effective absence management program.

Fall Compliance Update: An Overview of Significant Employee Benefits Related Laws, Rulemaking, & Litigation Events Speakers: Stephanie Hall & Nicole Fender Moderator: Marie Smith

September 24, 2025   Register Here

During this timely session, participants will learn aspects of the most significant employee benefit-related events occurring through the first seven months of 2025.

This session is designed as a clearing house for legal, legislative, and litigation related highlights from the most-recent period. Attendees should expect a fast-paced, summarized digest of benefits-related news and happenings.

Although individual coverage of topics presented in this learning module will be summarized into a digest form, supplemental program materials may be available to provide attendees with additional information and further commentary respecting many of the substantive updates offered during the program.

An Introduction to the Complex World of ERISA Fiduciary Status for Health & Welfare Plan Sponsorship Speakers: Jason Sheffield & Dominique Town Moderator: Marie Smith

October 29, 2025   Register Here

Understanding ERISA fiduciary status is a complex proposition. Historically, the focus and implications related to ERISA fiduciary status were more largely reserved for the world of retirement plans; however, as plaintiff’s attorneys and federal agencies have become more zealous in their advocacy efforts, and as health and welfare plans have evolved and become significantly more complex, the light of ERISA fiduciary implications has zeroed in on health plans, too.

In this program we will identify and explore the ERISA fiduciary code of conduct, including the fiduciary duties to which ERISA fiduciaries must adhere. Building upon the foundational principles of both law and caselaw, we’ll dive into fiduciary status, exploring foundational concepts, requirements, and best practices.

Attendees of this program will:

1. Learn and understand the identification and designation standard and requirements for plan-level ERISA fiduciaries in the health & welfare plan context;
2. Learn and understand the implications of ERISA fiduciary status designations;
3. Learn and apply the ERISA fiduciary’s code of professional conduct;
4. Understand fiduciary training and educational concepts and standards related to fiduciary readiness and governance best practices; and,
5. Review and understand recent enforcement trends resulting in both criminal and civil penalties against ERISA fiduciaries.

California Legal & Regulatory Update for 2025 Speakers: Sue Bendavid and Tal Yeyni Moderator by Marie Smith

November 19, 2025   Register Here

The year 2025 will see significant changes to benefits, employment and labor laws at both the state and federal levels. In this webinar, our guest presenters, Sue Bendavid and Tal Yeyni from the Lewitt Hackman law firm, will partner with us to offer current and prospective clients to offer a review of significant 2025 California-focused significant statutory and regulatory activities, as well as insights into potential legislative and regulatory priorities for California in 2026.Attendees of this program will:

1. Review significant California-focused statutory and regulatory happenings from calendar year 2025;
2. Preview legislative and regulatory priorities for California in the 2026 calendar year;
3. Review significant state and federal judicial activities from 2025;
4. Review payroll, benefit, labor, and employment law related statutory and regulatory activities for California in2025.