What should employers ask when implementing group risk benefits?

Employers must establish a strong relationship with their group risk benefits consultants to ensure that their workplace provision is appropriate for the needs of their staff, but what questions do employers that are new to the market need to ask to ensure that they are getting value for money?

Employers must establish a strong relationship with their group risk benefits consultants to ensure that their workplace provision is appropriate for the needs of their staff, but what questions do employers that are new to the market need to ask to ensure that they are getting value for money?

How can you help to support my workforce needs?

Tom Gaynor , UK employee benefits director at MetLife , advises employers to start by identifying their workforce needs and what is most important to them and then work with an intermediary to help identify an insurer that can help to support these.

“If an organisation is trying to differentiate itself through its benefits and marketing and branding, good intermediaries will be able to look at and understand what their business is like and what its priorities are, and work with it to put together the most suitable range of benefits,” he says. “Doing a bit of this, that and the other is just a cop out.”

Different providers will suit different employers, so employers should appoint a provider that can support their culture and offer them their preferred choice of value-added benefits.

David Manning, a principal at Mercer Marsh Benefits, says employers need to spend time in a ‘discovery phase’ to consider why they want to implement group risk benefits and what they are trying to achieve with them. He says that employers should be aware of competitors’ benefits provision by way of a ‘temperature check’ to enable them to benchmark their offering.

 

How can you help me to ensure my provision is fair?

executive pay and benefits tend to be slightly richer in terms of what they offer , but is it fair? I’m sure there are plenty of senior executives that would not mind not having such a high multiple of salary on their group life cover.”

He adds that employers could use other benefits to help create a more level benefits playing field if they prefer not to reduce their executives’ cover. “It is about what an organisation wants to stand for as an employer,” he adds. “I really believe that [employers have] got to look after all levels of staff equally when it comes to benefits.”

Banu Gajendran , occupational health, safety and wellbeing manager at Allianz UK, believes that employers must consider all ages of their workforce .  “Most employers tend to focus their health-related benefits on the over-40s , but what about the under-40s and identifying what their needs are?” she says.

This can be addressed in the discovery phase.

 

How will you service my plan?

Manning says that group risk providers’ service standards have been in need of improvement for decades. “I would have expected far more investment in technology and far more emphasis placed on service provision and communication around what good service looks like,” he says. He urges employers to question insurers about what data they can provide on their account and how long it will take them to provide this.

At the very least, employers should have access to employee claims ratios

Employers should also ascertain how insurers administer their billing process.

In addition, organisations should quiz them about how they will enable employees of different age groups to track their claim, says David Schupak , European regional sales director at Maxis Global Benefits Network.  “An employee at 25 years of age is going to want to check via a phone app while an older person may prefer a phone call,” he says.

 

What value-added services do you offer?

Employers should find out which value-added services a provider offers. These may include an employee assistance programme (EAP ), counselling or access to online health risk assessments

She warns employers about insurers’ claims about bespoke services, which may be little more than a trigger point programme that simply offers employees cover at the point of acute need, and that they have no input into.

Employers should also question whether an insurer provides softer benefits, such as education, training and communications support.

 

How can you help us reduce our spend and control costs over time?

Cost is at the forefront of most employers’ minds when considering group risk benefits implementation, so insurers should be clear about how they plan to help manage these over time.

Manning advises employers to assess factors such as how long employees work for their organisation and what their turnover is to determine group risk benefit cover limits. “There is a process to go through to assess the best costs and financing methodology, and there has to be some flexibility because certain organisations will have a defined budget and spend as a percentage of salary,” he says. “It’s about them finding an insurer that can provide a plan that fits that budget and the needs and requirements of their workforce.”

A good insurer will help employers identify the cost control mechanisms that they need to put in place over time.

“Employers can check their rate is still good, but I think there are too many switches around,” she says. “When an employer is bedding in a programme, it might be using EAPs , HR support and secondary medical opinion, so it does not really want to be looking at those every couple of years and re-bedding it in. The industry is about building and maintaining relationships.”