Emphasizing Voluntary Benefits: A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Emphasizing Voluntary Benefits: A Marathon, Not a Sprint

By Mark Head, MDH Consulting, LLC

As the Fall 2023 O/E season begins to ramp up, employers, enrollment firms, and consultants and brokers are heading towards 2024 with a clearer view on evolving the traditional means of communication to embrace more of a marketing orientation – where voluntary/workplace benefits will continue to play a vital role.

A recent Goldman Sachs’ survey found that the fastestgrowing voluntary/workplace benefits from 2020 to 2023 were child and elder care assistance (177% growth), hospital indemnity (152%), pet insurance (120%) and critical illness (120%).

Think about those four products.

It’s easy to celebrate the growth of hospital indemnity and critical illness And it might also be easy to skip over the growth in child and elder care assistance and pet insurance as “not as core to our business” But we could also expand our perspectives to embrace a more holistic, adjunct advisory role that emphasizes the yearround – if somewhat background – presence of voluntary/workplace benefits in employees’ lives

Less transactional, more strategic

Where we’re already “in” with a client, let’s find new ways to add more value. Everyone has been talking about “claims integration.” Why? Because employers are demanding that all of their vendors provide more value.

They’re demanding that vendors become more proactive, more creative, and more present with HR and benefit teams throughout the year It’s no wonder; our clients’ HR and benefit teams are grappling with enormous challenges, of which these three are just a few:

• The generational divide: Addressing the needs of a multi-generational workforce requires diverse strategies and nuanced messaging – all year long. For new hires, at life events, when leaves of absence occur – and even at termination. Tailoring messages to various age groups ensures that benefits are seen as valuable and relevant Baby boomers may be more interested in critical illness coverage, while younger generations might prioritize HSAs and FSAs Aligning these messages using the right tools, like live counselor sessions or virtual explainers, can build an ongoing connection with diverse employee groups

• Deferred care catch-up: The lingering impact of COVID means employees may still be behind on healthcare needs How many wellness benefits –that we sell so ardently – go unclaimed in a given year? Or, are employees just going to forego PCP visits and then show up in the ER? Or as an inpatient admission? Acknowledging deferred care and helping employees catch up with medical needs should be part of year-round communications, leading up to next year’s O/E.

• Specialty pharma costs: These costs have skyrocketed – and continue to do so, pushing up towards 50% of overall prescription spending. Creative use of claims analytics may yield findings where specialty pharma prescriptions could indicate compensable critical illness claims.

Next, when it comes to healthcare cost management, there are three high-level strategies:

• Prevention

• Early detection

• Care (and cost) management

More on these below – because it’s no accident (pun intended) that the growing emphasis on claims integration is emerging as a do or die issue

Voluntary/Workplace Benefits as integral to all of the above

Let’s forget the ~20% of employees who just don’t go to the doctor, and focus on the 80% who do Of course, for those who also buy Voluntary/Workplace Benefits, how many of them don’t claim their wellness benefit in a given year? Some reports say roughly 70% - 80%. That’s a big deal. And it creates a meaningful opportunity to “come alongside” HR and benefits to include wellness benefit reminders in year-round benefits communications (also known as “marketing”).

Let’s also forget that health plans often (if not always) pay for preventive visits at 100%. VB wellness – indemnity benefits – put cash straight into employees’ pockets –and that’s something worth marketing – all the time This speaks directly to both prevention and early detection –major healthcare cost management techniques – and key employer goals

The next generation of claims integration

Hospital admission claims data can provide the underpinning for hospital indemnity claims While they may not be as often overlooked as wellness benefits, still, how valuable would it be to our employer clients if we included HI reminders in ongoing, year-round, VB marketing campaigns? And if our systems actually begin capturing that claims data in close-to-real-time, via APIs, well, let your imagination run wild.

Claims data also reveals critical illness diagnoses. And critical illnesses are just that – critical – not just to the employee – but also to the roles they play in the workplace. Just a little more proactivity in this arena can be a huge differentiator to our employer clients. Again, it’s all about being more proactive, more creative. And, in truth, more compassionate

Enter, personalization

Psychographic profiling (understanding personality, values, interests) allows more engaging, personalized messaging. Several different models can break employees into 5 or 6 behavioral profiles – just off of basic census data like name and address. How? Because pretty much all of Americans’ consumer data is tagged to our names and where we live – so looking up a persona data element becomes almost as simple as looking up someone’s credit score

It’s no accident (pun intended) that the growing emphasis on claims integration is emerging as a do or die issue

If we know that one type wants to be in control, while others only go to the doctor as a last resort, and still others tend to put those who count on them –family and colleagues – ahead of their own health needs, then we can frame how the cash from accident, hospital indemnity and critical illness can help put them back in charge, or how it can help them navigate all their holistic and self-care protocols that insurance doesn’t pay for, or how it helps them ensure they can be there for family and duty, and not become a burden on them

Our market knowledge and passion can move the needle

For employers, VB specialists' market knowledge and passion can be transformative When we move more into the role of HR, benefit team and employee advocates, we can help deliver a more holistic experience for all of the stakeholders We can help assemble a team of specialists to evolve the employer’s communications into more compelling marketing And with platforms that allow centralized communication throughout the year, we can make a huge difference that builds on what employees enroll in during Q4. As Bart Sheeler notes, "Put all the information in one place and make it convenient, and adoption rates will increase."

The last word

The O/E season is an opportunity to go beyond just communicating what's available, to explaining why employees should care what’s being offered. By adopting a marketing orientation and incorporating personalization as we move into the calendar year, we can build stronger relationships with our employer clients, and they can build stronger relationships with their employees. From psychographic profiling to creative technology and claims analytics tools, the shift from communication to marketing creates an engaging environment that emphasizes the importance of Voluntary/Workplace Benefits as integral to a comprehensive benefits portfolio. The marathon of O/E requires endurance, creativity, and adaptation to a continually evolving landscape, where personalization and year-round engagement set the stage for success.

Mark Head, President, MDH Consulting, LLC - focuses on innovation, strategy, business culture, business intelligence and analytics, as well as sales and marketing – with all of that oriented towards developing more enrollment and engagement in underutilized benefit programs In 2015, he established MDH Consulting in recognition of the need to drive increased enrollment and engagement in benefit programs His approach is built on using personalized, values-based communications – BenefitPersonas – to create more compelling and attractive messaging that carries a clear “what’s-in-it-for-me” to employees.