Offering health insurance benefits is no longer enough. More than half of all American workers view supplemental benefits as a core component of a comprehensive benefits program, and small employer Groups are responding to this demand.
Outside of major medical, FormFire saw more ancillary product plans assigned to Small Groups during annual enrollment for 2022 than in the previous renewal season.
Life insurance plans are top-of-mind for employees. Plans assigned in FormFire for supplemental life insurance for employees and their children went up by nearly 25 percent from last year. Life insurance companies are seeing this demand, too. According to LIMRA, in the last six months of 2021, the number of life insurance policies sold increased by 8 percent—the highest policy sales growth since 1983. LIMRA also found that 32 percent of consumers shopping for life insurance last year said they were shopping because of COVID-19.
Employees’ uneasiness about their health and financial security is evident this year. Critical illness insurance plans assigned in FormFire went up by nearly half from 2020. In addition, both long-term and short-term disability plans assigned increased by approximately 25 percent in 2021. The pandemic demonstrated the importance of these benefits where they may have passed up in the past.
Besides planning for potential health events, the last two years majorly disrupted childcare, dependent care and retirements, causing employees to be more concerned about savings. According to Benefits Pro predictions, we’ll continue to see employees seek more tax-advantaged savings plans such as Health Savings Accounts (HSA), Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (DC-FSA), and Retiree Reimbursement Arrangements (RRA). Employees want to save on a pre-tax basis and use their savings when they need to.
As the market for talent continues to shake up, Small Group employers are evaluating how they can offer more robust benefit packages to retain employees. Brokers will continue to lean on digital tools to help them present these options to their Groups. With platforms such as FormFire, Brokers can easily display ancillary products alongside major medical in a shopping-like experience. Through a digital approach, these “bonus” benefits can easily be evaluated and added to health benefits packages with little additional time spent, increasing ROI for the Broker and providing more options for the Employer.
Learn more about how FormFire can help bring ancillary benefits from quote-to-close.