Workscape Institute

As companies look to increase employee engagement through providing broad benefits offerings to their employees, group sponsored insurance plans are typically complemented by voluntary benefits such as supplemental life, pet insurance, long-term disability, among others.  If effectively communicated to employees and provided as an integrated part of the enrollment process, these additional offerings can be an effective way to boost talent retention efforts with minimal expenditures.

Follow up:

Perhaps due to this synergy with today’s market conditions, the notion of adding voluntary benefits to a company’s benefits portfolio is getting some very strong press.  According to data from Eastbridge Consulting Group, 70% of all companies with at least 100 employees offer at least one voluntary benefit.  For large companies that compete with each other to retain highly skilled workers, offering a broad menu of benefits – group sponsored and insured – enhances an employee’s experience and helps an organization to stand out amongst its peers.

However, organizations accustomed to streamlining and centralizing processes are often challenged by the delivery options for voluntary benefits.  These programs are generally administered manually, guided by hard copy resources from the HR department and 3rd party firms.  When contrasted with click-through online enrollment tools for group sponsored insurance, this effort can often be perceived as tedious, and lead to lower-than-projected adoption rates.

Perhaps as a result, organizations increasingly ask for the ability to provide voluntary enrollment information along with group sponsored benefits as a part of unified online experience.  Combining enrollment for group sponsored and voluntary insurance has the following benefits:

• Reduces expenses by automating most or all of the benefits enrollment process. (Traditionally, voluntary benefits necessitated bringing in benefits contractors to conduct time-consuming manual enrollments.)
• Enables organizations to provide dynamic decision-support tools for all benefits offerings (group and voluntary) within a single, consistent online experience.
• Provides a streamlined employee experience (and shortens the learning curve as everything’s available through a consistent UI).
• Improves plan awareness and employee satisfaction

We have seen this become a differentiator in the broker community, as the efficiency gains inherent in a “one-stop-shop” for enrollment have strong appeal, and organizations continue to push for online systems to reduce cost and allow employees to enroll at their convenience.  And while we can’t predict the economy’s future turns, reducing health care overhead will likely continue to be a top priority, and the trend of providing group and voluntary insurance options together is poised for continued growth.