Voluntary benefits

Voluntary benefits is often referred to as "worksite marketing." Many carriers, in fact, refer to their voluntary products as "worksite voluntary benefits." Recent developments in enrollment technology, however, are rapidly making the term "worksite" obsolete and no longer relevant to the voluntary benefits process. The term "worksite" derives from how these benefits have had to be enrolled. As products that are voluntarily purchased by employees, the only consistently effective means of presenting (and selling) them have been one-on-one employee meetings with licensed benefit counselors (enrollers) at the workplace during the workday.

Employee Benefit News is soliciting short articles from benefits professionals on best practices related to open enrollment and voluntary benefits. Articles selected by the editors will appear in EBN’s June 1 issue or on the Web site.

AlwaysCare Benefits, Inc. recently noted that it achieved a major business milestone: signing up more than 500,000 employees and dependents for group dental, vision, life, disability, critical illness and accident benefit plans.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has triggered considerable angst about the fate of group health insurance coverage since its passage, but recent research suggests that it’s not expected to affect non-medical benefits.

Voluntary products were a key ingredient of employee benefit packages last year in the face of challenging times, with sales figures revealing a compelling story.

Last April, Eastbridge Consulting Group examined the interchangeability of key phrases describing “voluntary” benefits and the “worksite” market.

Employee Benefit News is soliciting short articles from benefits professionals on best practices related to open enrollment and voluntary benefits. Articles selected by the editors will appear in EBN’s June 1 issue or on the Web site.

Aflac Dental policyholders have a reason to smile. The carrier’s new voluntary dental insurance plan now offers multiple levels of coverage and more generous benefits that include higher annual maximums and better orthodontic coverage.

Younger generations aren’t very familiar with critical illness insurance, but challenging times appear to be spiking their interest in other workplace benefits, according to two sets of jointly conducted surveys.

After seeing enrollment in its medical plans gradually dwindle to less than 2% of total group membership, the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America will shutter this product line and instead focus on dental, disability, life, critical illness and disability offerings.

Critics of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) once warned that the law would decimate mini-med plans – that is, until the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) issued regulatory guidance.

Employers are expected to invest more money to protect personal information in response to increased government regulation and enforcement and to stem the rising tide of risk, according to a new report released by Ernst & Young.

The latest news on industry movers and shakers concerns one seasoned executive’s career move and a veteran disability insurance agent earning kudos for his staff from a leading carrier for a thirteenth consecutive year.

The voluntary benefits bandwidth for independent insurance agents and brokers is growing, thanks to a recent industry partnership.

Be sure to mark your calendar for a series of online educational forums in 2011 on disability and absence management co-presented by two industry leaders.

Nothing in life is guaranteed, but working Americans increasingly are in search of flexible income-protection products that will offset market volatility.

The National Business Group on Health has launched an ambitious, three-year initiative aimed at helping employers design benefit plans that reflect the latest information and expert recommendations on cancer treatment and prevention.

Worksite voluntary benefits as we know them are dead. Driven largely by the spiraling cost increases in group health insurance, over the past decade or so employers have been shifting benefit costs to employees.

According to WellPoint Inc. research, 83% of American employees think more highly of employers that offer voluntary insurance benefits than those that don't.

Most economists seem to agree that we are in the middle of a slowly expanding economic recovery. What will be the long-term impact of this historic financial collapse and recovery on the employee benefit and voluntary landscape?