6 voluntary trends and opportunities for 2014

“[Voluntary] prospects are outstanding because change brings opportunity. Not only today, but going into the future, it’s going to present a lot of great opportunities for us,” said Charlie Grim, sales manager at The BenefitSource in Elmhurst, Ill. While conference co-chair Walter Podgurski noted that Gil Lowerre, president of Eastbridge Consulting and leading expert in voluntary research, has predicted that 2014 will once again be a banner year for the products with health reform fully in place.

“Look at the population of our country,” said Grim, referring to the aging population, “That’ll dictate what gets sold.” Meanwhile, a report released in mid-December by the National Study of Long-Term Care Providers, compiled by the CDC, shows that only 8 million people used LTC in 2012 — that’s roughly 2.5% of the total U.S. population.