Annual health insurance rate hikes. Higher deductibles. Reduced benefits. Tighter benefits budgets. Shrinking human resources staff. These are just a few of the tough issues your clients are dealing with. Taking on voluntary benefits -- and an experienced voluntary benefits provider -- can bring much-needed solutions to your clients and their employees and help you strengthen your client relationships.
But if you want to deliver solutions that are relevant to the health care cost issue, your voluntary benefits partner should offer more than just products. Following are three offerings your voluntary benefits partner should bring to the table.
1. Strong face-to-face benefits communication
In the wake of shrinking human resources budgets and staffing, your clients need help communicating their benefits program so employees will understand their benefits choices, appreciate the value of what their employer provides, and make smart benefits decisions.
The most effective way to do this is to have your benefits professional meet face-to-face with your client. Make sure your voluntary benefits provider offers professional, consistent benefits communication for all employees -- at no direct cost to the employer -- for both core and voluntary benefits. If you have employees in a variety of states or locations, make sure your voluntary benefits partner also has expertise in multi-state benefits communication and enrollments.
2. Wide variety of enrollment options
Technological advances have made it more efficient to deliver benefits communication to employees, enroll them in their benefits, and administer a company's core and voluntary benefits enrollments -- regardless of the account's size. In fact, the next generation of enrollment technology is here: the Internet. It brings many advantages, particularly in the area of enrollment reporting. With a Web-based enrollment system, your clients can get a daily look at how their enrollment is progressing, which employees have been seen, what they're choosing, and what they're spending.
Some other enrollment options that should be considered when face-to-face meetings aren't feasible are:
- Group meeting enrollments -- This enrollment option should feature benefits communication along with quick, easy benefits selection on paper applications pre-filled with employee census information. Other tools can include election forms, selection worksheets with products and rates, educational brochures, and coverage outlines.
- Call centers -- These help clients who have employees who can't meet in person with a benefits professional. It allows employees to make enrollment selections over the phone. Many enrollment firms offer this option to larger companies because they don't have local enrollment teams capable of conducting individual sessions.
- Self-enrollments -- The Internet has created an array of enrollment options, providing more possibilities to reach employees who don't have access to a face-to-face enrollment session. Of course, face-to-face enrollments are the most effective, but self-enrollments via the Internet can help reach certain employee populations.
3. Support after the sale
Although high tech is the big trend in benefits enrollments, nothing beats high touch when it comes to helping employees make good benefits decisions. Your voluntary benefits partner must be able to meet your clients where they are. That's why having local benefits professionals meet with employees in person makes a huge difference. And from a human resources perspective, having a benefits professional nearby to provide local service for the initial enrollment, new hires, and annual re-enrollments is a tremendous advantage.
Your partner must also have the back-office support to handle account administration using leading technology that adapts to your clients' systems, making for hassle-free enrollment and billing processes. For example, policies must be quickly issued to employees, and billing must be accurate.
By bringing a quality voluntary benefits provider to your agency, you can give your clients high-tech enrollment solutions and deliver high-touch, in-person service. The most successful enrollments are those that do a good job helping employees understand their benefits and make wise selections. By combining voluntary benefits product solutions -- to help with health care cost issues -- with effective enrollment options, your agency can strengthen client relationships and keep out the competition.
Henry Price is senior vice president of customer acquisition services for Colonial Supplemental Insurance products and services. Colonial is a market leader in providing voluntary insurance to employees and their families through the workplace, along with personal benefits communication, enrollment capabilities and a commitment to service. For more information, contact Mr. Price at 803-798-7000, email him at hlprice@coloniallife.com or visit www.coloniallife.com.
