Employee Benefits
Getting the Most From Your Voluntary Benefit Offerings
March 6, 2025
There’s little debate among business owners and HR professionals about whether to include voluntary benefits in their overall employee benefits program. If you’re a reputable organization competing in the employment marketplace, offering voluntary benefits — also known as supplementary or workforce benefits — is essential.
Where uncertainty enters the process of benefits program design is in answering four questions:
- Which voluntary benefits should we offer?
- How much will this cost?
- What is the value of each voluntary benefit we’re considering — to the employer as well as to the employee?
- How do we — again, employer and employee — get the most bang for our buck?
For answers to these questions, join Alera Group on Thursday, March 20, as we present the next in our Engage series of webinars, Maximizing Impact: The Value of Voluntary Benefits for Today’s Workforce.
During this session, our experts will highlight the transformative value of voluntary benefits — from boosting your employees’ financial wellbeing and driving workforce retention to addressing the unique and evolving needs of your team.
What you’ll learn
Joining me as webinar co-presenters will be Jennon Caruth, of Alera Group Voluntary Benefits Enrollment Solutions, and Megan Runci, benefits consultant for Propel Insurance, an Alera Group company.
During the session, we’ll discuss:
- Why voluntary benefits matter
- Employer challenges and considerations
- Strategies for internal communications and employee engagement.
In addition to sharing our findings and insights, we’ll seek information regarding what matters most to you when designing a voluntary benefits program, with considerations including:
- Price
- Overall plan design
- Administration of billing and claim processing
- Improved employee experience through the integration of claims notification and payment.
Facilitating utilization
Voluntary benefits can be extraordinarily valuable, but only if employers understand what they are and how to use them. Our presentation will address the barriers to benefits utilization and explore how employers can provide education and encouragement that leads to successful outcomes.
Which benefits provider or providers you choose is vital to the employee experience, so we’ll discuss how to evaluate carrier variables such as coverage, cost and ease of use, including during the claims process.
And because employees often forget about voluntary benefits after they’ve selected them during Open Enrollment, we’ll explore how — and how often — to provide periodic reminders throughout the year.
Generational variables
Common voluntary benefits include Accident Insurance, Critical Illness Insurance, gym memberships, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, identity theft protection, legal services, Life and Supplemental Life Insurance, Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) and Life/LTCI hybrids, Pet Insurance and Supplemental Disability Insurance.
Which voluntary benefits you choose to offer should depend on the demographic composition of your workforce and prospective talent pool. Priorities common to your industry and geographic location should be considerations as well.
Given the increasing age diversity among workforces, recognizing the varying needs of different generations of employees is especially important.
Alera Group’s 2025 Employee Benefits Market Outlook includes a chart on the benefits wants of four generations in the workforce: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and Gen Z. Not surprisingly, wants of the participants in the nationwide survey that informed the report varied by age, with the two older generations prioritizing health insurance (including Medical, Dental and Vision) at a higher rate than their younger counterparts and younger people generally placing a higher value on voluntary benefits than older workers.
One benefit for which there was a narrow gap among survey participants was Hospital Indemnity Insurance, with Millennials expressing the strongest preference for the benefit at 31%, followed by Gen Z (30%), Generation X (29%) and Baby Boomers (25%).
The strongest preference expressed in the survey was by Baby Boomers for Medical Insurance, with 79% prioritizing the coverage, compared to only 53% of Gen Z. Another significant gap: Twenty-eight percent of Gen Z (and 26% of Millennials) expressed a desire for Pet Insurance, compared to 17% of Generation X and only 6% of Baby Boomers.
Timely presentation
While Open Enrollment is months into the future, the process of designing your benefits program is already underway — or at least it should be. Our voluntary-benefits webinar will help you design the kind of program that elevates employee satisfaction and contributes to organizational success.
Join us on March 20, and come away with the information, confidence and momentum to make the process easier and more rewarding.
About the author
Tina Santelli
National Vice President of Voluntary Benefits and Enrollment Practice Leader
Alera Group
As national VP of Voluntary Benefits and Enrollment Solutions practice leader, Tina Santelli is responsible for expanding Alera Group's specialty benefits solutions, enhancing offerings, education and services for clients of all sizes. She oversees all existing specialty benefits solutions, collaborating with key internal and external stakeholders to further drive engagement. She previously served as VP of Carrier Partner Management.
Contact information:
Related Content
Employee Benefits
Building Connections To Support Employee Mental Health
Mental Health Awareness Month begins in May, but to emphasize mental wellbeing as a year-round priority, Alera Group is getting an early start on distributing our new Mental Health Awareness Toolkit. Designed and refined by our Wellbeing team, the Toolkit is an employer resource to help you and your employees adopt healthy activities, build social connections and erode stigmas that have long hampered discussion of mental health.
March 4, 2025
Find out more
Employee Benefits
Weighty Matter: Obesity, GLP-1s and the Rising Cost of Healthcare
Obesity and health problems associated with it — including heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, several types of cancer, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and more — are primary factors that must be considered as employers seek to contain healthcare costs for their employers, as well as for themselves.
February 26, 2025
Find out more Employee Benefits
Employee Benefits, Prescription Drugs and the Importance of Benchmarking
Benchmarking — the process of comparing benefits among companies of similar size, industry and geographic location — is a vital exercise in designing an employee benefits program that enables a company to compete and retain talent without damaging the bottom line.
January 27, 2025
Find out more