When it comes to voluntary products, everyone is predicting that 2014 will be even better, said Walter Podgurski Dec. 11 during a talk at the Workplace Benefits Transitions conference in Chicago. The conference, sponsored by EBAs parent company SourceMedia, focused heavily on voluntary products, including specific tips for health brokers expanding their portfolio in this realm.
A big difference health producers need to get used to, one expert said, is the sentiment involved with voluntary. Sorry brokers, but most of you are not empathetic enough to deal with voluntary, said Jim Cappel, president of Illinois Benefits in Chicago, on the same panel that conference co-chair Podgurski began with the aforementioned 2014 prediction. [Medical] is more rudimentary, where voluntary you have a lot more emotion involved because usually something bad had to happen to cause a claim.
