Prudential teams with Wellthy to offer employers caregiving benefits

Employee caregivers have been pushed to the brink during the pandemic. Prudential is partnering with caregiver benefits company Wellthy to help employees weather the challenges of caring for an aging or ill loved one.

Over 15% of American workers say they provide ongoing care for a chronically ill, disabled or elderly person, according to the Family Care Alliance. However, just one in five organizations offer paid or unpaid leave in addition to that mandated by federal and state FMLA requirements to meet the needs of caregiving employees, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

The Prudential partnership will incorporate Wellthy’s suite of digital and concierge caregiving services into Prudential’s financial wellness offering. The services will help employers relieve the caregiving burden impacting their employees.

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“Wellthy has a range of services and we liked the idea that we can offer some digital solutions,” says Kristin Tugman, vice president of health and productivity analytics and consulting for Prudential Group Insurance. “The caregiving experience is extremely confusing— there are financial impacts and legal impacts that can be taxing to someone’s mental health.”

Caregivers were asking for more professional help to navigate the complexities of caring for a loved one and to help get them to the best and most affordable resources, Tugman says.

By partnering with Wellthy, Prudential’s employer clients will be able to give their employees no-cost access to educational content, digital care plan creation, storage of digital caregiving documents like prescriptions, medical records and wills, access to a shared calendar to track appointments, as well as the ability to establish a group caregiving discussion.

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“Well before the pandemic, caregiving was a serious challenge for so many Americans and we’ve remained steadfast in our commitment to lift the burden off caregivers,” Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, CEO of Wellthy, said in a release. “Our model is built on transforming family care through personalized care support that caregivers can control from an online dashboard, and we are pleased that more and more employers are seeing the value of providing their workforce with access to caregiving support.”

Women in particular have been hit hardest by the caregiving crisis, with many feeling the need to exit the workforce in order to care for their loved one full time. Indeed, one in four female caregivers are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce because of child care and other challenges due to COVID-19, according to LeanIn data.

“[The pandemic] is the biggest setback that women have experienced in 10 years. It’s so important for employers to take this seriously and come up with creative ways [for] women and caregivers to stay at work,” Tugman says. “Offering these solutions was important pre-pandemic but they’re even more important today.”