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July 07, 2010 at 08:00 PM
As health care reform sets in, agents are looking for ways to maintain or increase profits. Within the first few months of the law’s enactment, brokers already face new regulations that will restructure and reduce their commissions. In order to stay competitive, firms must find creative ways to cut costs.
One area of business where agents can save time and money is by modifying the way they sell voluntary benefits to clients’ employees. Traditional, in-person meetings can be very time-consuming and costly; by replacing this process with the use of video, firms can significantly cut costs while putting in fewer hours.
Put the decision power in employees’ hands
Currently, many companies are moving away from worksite meetings between agents and their employees for voluntary benefits. For a variety of reasons, more and more employers opt to use video and other communication tools to allow their employees to make better decisions on their own.
Owen Wingate of Wingate Insurance Group has seen this trend increasing with his clients in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. His company began offering videos and other online tools to clients, and has received a positive response.
“Worksite brokers believe that the only way to get employees signed up for voluntary benefits is by sitting down with each person one on one,” said Wingate. “Recently, the increasing trend is for brokers to have less direct involvement.”
Multiple brokers cause mixed messages
One of the biggest reasons employers are getting away from worksite meetings is because of a lack of consistency. During traditional face-to-face meetings, four or five different brokers may sit down with employees. This means that each employee hears a slightly different message than the others.
By using video to convey the information, brokers can be sure all employees hear the same message. There is no confusion about what was said; if employees have trouble recalling a certain piece of information, they can review the videos again. With this tactic, brokers aren’t bogged down with questions.
Video provides better convenience
In the recent Benefits Market Study by Agent Media, which will be released in August, 31 percent of employers that discontinued their voluntary benefits programs said it was because providing enrollment access and employee education is a distraction from core business operations.
