By: Melissa Cummings, Chief Operating Officer, Progyny
For decades, benefits leaders have been pulled between two critical issues: maintaining predictable costs or satisfying employee needs.
Today, employers don't have to choose.
New approaches, including fully insured supplemental benefit models, now make it possible to offer personalized healthcare benefits—such as fertility and family building support—while reducing financial uncertainty and administration complexity.
This is especially relevant as employee retention remains a key need, and benefits leaders look for new opportunities to deliver meaningful support without compromising financial constraints.
Employees Expect Benefits That Reflect Reality
Our modern workforce is more diverse than ever, which means employee needs have grown more variable across different life stages and circumstances. While one person might need help paying off their student loans, another is looking for help building their family. Others may be navigating postpartum recovery, caregiving responsibilities, menopause, or chronic health conditions.
A one-size-fits-all benefits strategy no longer reflects the realities of today's workforce.
A 2026
Bottom line: Personalized benefits have moved from a differentiator to an expectation.
Cost Predictability No Longer Requires Benefit Tradeoffs
Personalized benefits have historically come with unpredictable utilization, creating administrative strain and financial risk. For many employers—especially those with limited resources—the decision to offer these benefits comes down to whether they can afford them.
But better benefits don't have to mean higher financial risk.
Innovation in benefit design, funding, and administration is changing the way we think about offering benefits.
Fully insured supplemental models give employers greater cost visibility by expanding access to personalized care under a predictable funding structure. By shifting risk and simplifying administration, these models allow organizations to offer high-value benefits without taking on the same level of financial uncertainty. As a result, benefits leaders can evaluate offerings based on both employee impact and business value rather than cost concerns alone.
High-Value Care Can Address Cost Drivers While Improving Employee Outcomes
Personalized benefits are often viewed through the employee lens, but they can also address the most significant healthcare costs that organizations face.
Take maternity and neonatal care, for example. They represent one of the highest healthcare cost drivers for many employer-sponsored health plans. Investing in personalized support across family building, pregnancy, postpartum, and early parenthood helps employees access the right care at the right time, improving outcomes while proactively addressing a significant healthcare expense.
When benefits are designed to support employees proactively rather than reactively, organizations can improve care quality while addressing preventable costs that come with complications and fragmented care.
This makes personalized benefits more than an employee perk. They become part of a broader strategy to support workforce health and optimize healthcare spending. The better question is no longer whether you can afford high-value care benefits; it's whether you can afford to keep funding them the same way.
As competition for talent continues, organizations that invest thoughtfully in personalized, high-quality care will be better positioned to recruit, retain, and support their workforce.
The healthcare landscape has evolved. The workforce has evolved. It's time for benefits strategies to evolve, too.
To learn about Progyny's fully insured supplemental plan that helps small and midsize employers offer personalized fertility and family building benefits, visit
