Voluntary

As employees take on more responsibility for paying for health care, voluntary benefits can provide much-needed additional coverage. EBN spoke to a number of voluntary benefits providers to get their thoughts on the major trends they see coming in 2012. Not surprisingly, all the trends and influences in the HR world at large - health care reform, employer cost-shifting, technology and communications - affect the voluntary benefits industry as well. Here, we provide a summary of key trends, along with charts and data to help employers plan their voluntary benefits strategy going forward.

Semantics are supremely important in making or breaking certain lines of insurance.

As you consider offering more value-added benefits to your employee population, I encourage you to think about seriously offering long-term care insurance. As many of us are seeing our parents and other family members live well into their 80s and 90s, it's more and more likely that the elderly people in our lives will at some point need long-term care services. It's the rare and fortunate elderly person who continues to live independently in his or her own home without home care services.

With tuition costs on the rise, employees looking for ways to pay for their children's college education can save with 529 plans.

What will the successful post-reform 21st century agency look like? EBA contributor Nelson Griswold predicts what will set you apart from the herd.

While employers have increasingly adopted CDHPs as a lower cost option, employees have been slower to embrace them. A recent study reveals one stat likely to increase participation, writes BeAdvised contributor Doug Mantz.

Last month, a statement from McKinsey Consulting declared that "social innovators are bringing bold new approaches to the difficult problems that plague the world. The next disruptive force in social innovation will involve a new, more rigorous approach that funnels resources to where they can do the most good."

Semantics are supremely important in making or breaking certain lines of insurance.

With serious concerns about medical commission cuts and maintaining top-line revenues, 58% of brokers and consultants are embracing two specific initiatives EBA contributor Nelson Griswold explains in the December issue.

Following the Eastbridge Consulting Group report earlier this year that showed a decrease in voluntary benefits sales during 2010, it has been refreshing to see that, according to recent insurance carriers' annual surveys, employees' interest remains strong.