Employers need to look at how benefits arrangements affect worker productivity, not just their share of the premium bill.
Alex Dumont, a life and disability product designer at the U.S. unit of Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSX:SLF), talked about the importance of taking worker productivity into account in a recent interview.
She sees the traditional employer-paid group benefits market holding steady, and voluntary benefits product demand growing.
“Prospect activity is slowly starting to climb,” Dumont said.
But Dumont said she is hearing more conversations these days about the possibility that efforts to hold down major medical costs may be hurting employers’ efforts to keep workers productive, at work, and off the disability insurance benefits rolls.
See also: Disability benefits may cut workers’ comp costs
Employers, benefits groups, consultants and others have talked for years about measuring return on investments on wellness and condition management programs. But Dumont said she is also interested in hearing more about how gaps in coverage affect employees’ ability to adhere to medical advice, and about how problems with adherence may hurt an employers’ benefits costs and overall performance.