Employers Looking To Worksite Producers To Make Their Lives Easier

Employers Looking To Worksite Producers To Make Their Lives Easier

By Trevor Thomas

Voluntary worksite products provide the chance to boost sales as employers increasingly seek ways to simplify benefits programs, and the products fill the bill exactly, experts say.

“In general, insurers are a lot more focused on voluntary products than in the past,” says Susan Sames, a consultant for Tillinghast, a business of Towers Perrin, New York. “Thats where they want growth. Benefit managers’ time and money are being taken up with managing medical benefits. They arent looking for new employer-paid products. But they are interested in offering more choices to employees.”

For their part, producers say they are positioning voluntary benefits as a way to reduce stress on employers human resources department.

“Whats happening is an emphasis on making it easier for the employer,” says Alan Barthelman, president of AB & Associates, Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

Laptop enrollments, single-source billing for all benefits and payroll deductions are all part of taking the workload off the employee benefits department, he notes.

“The reason is saving money, and companies doing that are cutting staff, so human resource is already stretched so thin,” Barthelman says. “Worksite marketers and carriers need to make it very easy. Technology and the use of the Internet for enrolling, getting rid of paper handling are a big part of that.”

At the same time, employers are seeking ways to offer employees a wider choice of benefits as they cut back on medical plans, advisors point out. This is driving sales among employers of all sizes, says Rick Storms, a benefits consultant with Marsh Inc.’s employee benefits services in Minneapolis.

Although the recent economic downturn spurred voluntary benefit sales, employers’ interest continues to be strong in the recovering economy, Storms notes, because employers “are still being shrewd with their benefits dollars.”

Employers are looking for producers to be their consultant on benefits and help them to understand the players and options in the market, he adds.

“They are looking at a variety of products, administrative approaches and enrollment approaches, and producers need to have a real good understanding of those things,” says Storms. “The advisor has to manage it, so the employer doesn’t second-guess their decisions.”

Michael H. Sheridan, chairman of Fringe Benefits Management Co., Tallahassee, Fla., thinks the recent economic downturn may have helped voluntary benefit sales in more ways than one.

Many employees lost confidence in their 401(k) plans as values plummeted, so now they are turning to insurance products, he says. Products such as executive life, disability and medical supplements have benefited as a result, Sheridan believes.

“There are improved results in enrollments for worksite and voluntary products at the same time as enrollments in retirement plans funded with equities decrease,” he says.

“Another phenomenon we saw during the last economic downturn is that many employers shifted from benefit-rich medical plans to more employee contributions for benefits,” he observes. “Now that the economy is turned around, I don’t think that employers will reverse themselves. So the opportunities for more worksite-marketed programs will increase.”