Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 10 seconds

Most Employees Don't Change Benefits Picks: Studies

When it comes to employee benefits–especially health insurance–the recent Aflac “WorkForces Report” indicates that the vast majority of U.S. workers are reluctant to change their benefits options, mainly because they don’t fully understand the range of choices open to them. So reports Workforce.com.

Even more troubling for benefits professionals, in MetLife’s annual “Employee Benefits Trends Study,” more than half the respondents find their companies’ benefits communications inadequate to help them understand their options and how to pay for specific services.

Admittedly, understanding high-deductible medical insurance plans, in-network and out-of-network choices, or an ever-increasing number of 401(k) selections is challenging. However, research out of Carnegie Mellon University finds that an appallingly low number of Americans can even accurately define common terms like “co-pay” or “deductible.”

What’s more, the Aflac study found that 54% of workers don’t even want more control over their health-insurance options because they find them too daunting; also that the same percentage wastes up to $750 because of mistakes made during open-enrollment periods (which generally take place this time of year).

What to do to help solve this debacle? The benefits officers should try to think more like marketers: make better strategic use of the abundant employee benefit data available to them by personalizing, “versioning,” and otherwise leveraging benefit communications to convey important messaging to an ever-more diversified employee population.

Read the full article from Workforce.com.

Read 3590 times
Rate this item
(0 votes)

Visit other PMG Sites:

PMG360 is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal data we collect from our subscribers/agents/customers/exhibitors and sponsors. On May 25th, the European's GDPR policy will be enforced. Nothing is changing about your current settings or how your information is processed, however, we have made a few changes. We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy to make it easier for you to understand what information we collect, how and why we collect it.