Though the industry has gotten by for decades with benefit descriptions, apparently someone felt the need to have the federal government legislate specific terms. The new health care reform law requires The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish standards with direct input from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
On August 17, 2011 HHS released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Uniform Benefit Summaries. This new requirement applies to individual plans, employer plans (fully and self-insured) . Soon, you can expect your benefit summaries to start looking the same or similar to every other employer or insurer.
More details can be found by clicking here, and a good sample of this new design is available here. (scroll down)