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Employee benefits play a huge role in attracting, engaging, and retaining talent. According to an article in Forbes, 60% of employees say that benefits are extremely or very important when considering whether to stay with their current employer.
Selecting benefits can be difficult. What I mean by that is there are some benefits almost everyone wants (example: healthcare) but other benefits might be desired by a smaller percentage of the workforce – like pet insurance. It doesn’t mean that it’s not important but not everyone has a pet.
If an organization wants to offer benefits that a lot of employees want … but maybe not everyone wants … voluntary benefits could be an option.
To help us understand more about voluntary benefits, I spoke with Heather Garbers, CVBS, senior vice president of voluntary benefits and technology for HUB International. Heather is responsible for driving voluntary benefits sales and strategy. She is also responsible for partnering with clients to build optimal enrollment and communications solutions that enhance employee understanding of and engagement in voluntary plan options.
Heather, thanks for being here. Let’s start with a definition. What are voluntary benefits?
[Garbers] Voluntary benefits is a broad term that refers to non-core insurance offerings such as life, disability, critical illness, accident insurance, hospital indemnity, legal services, identity theft protection, pet, student loan services, early wage access, and more.
While some of these plans may be employer-paid, they are traditionally voluntary/employee-paid plans that allow individuals to tailor their benefits to their unique needs.
What’s the advantage – to organizations and individuals – of offering voluntary benefits?
[Garbers] These offerings are gaining popularity as employees increasingly view their employers as trusted sources for comprehensive benefits that support their financial, mental, and physical well-being. For employees, purchasing these benefits through the workplace often provides access to group rates, group underwriting, and plan designs or coverage options not available individually.
For employers, voluntary benefits provide a cost neutral and valuable way to stand out in a competitive job market by addressing the diverse needs, goals, and life stages of today’s workforce – while showing they care about their wellbeing. Maximizing return-on-investment (ROI) requires a consultative, educational approach, as many employees remain unfamiliar with these offerings. Clear, accessible communication is essential to drive awareness and enrollment.
In your definition, you listed several types of voluntary benefits. Can you elaborate on some of the more popular ones?
[Garbers] Pet insurance is currently the most frequently requested voluntary benefit among employees. However, many of our clients are now choosing to integrate accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity coverage into their core benefits strategy. These benefits help employees manage unexpected out-of-pocket medical costs and ensure access to essential care.
Interest is also growing in non-traditional benefits like legal services and identity theft protection, which offer multi-generational appeal, cost-savings, and services that enhance overall employee well-being.
If organizations are curious about offering voluntary benefits, how do they find out what employees want?
[Garbers] Your benefits consultant should have access to specialists that can evaluate your current benefits offerings, employee demographics, and benchmarking data, to identify voluntary benefits options that complement your benefits strategy and address any gaps in coverage. They can also help design employee surveys or implement focus groups to help better understand which benefits your employees value most.
Last question, once organizations do their internal research and know what types of voluntary benefits they’d like to offer, how can an insurance broker help with implementation?
[Garbers} A benefits consultant can work with you as a trusted partner throughout implementation—managing the quoting and analysis, providing recommendations that align with your technology and administrative needs, and ensuring the best employee experience. They can also support you with education and enrollment strategies, easing the load of communicating new benefit options to your employees.
My thanks to Heather and the HUB International team for sharing their knowledge with us. If you want to learn more about voluntary benefits, check out this article on “4 Steps to Using Benefits Data Smarter to Create Voluntary Benefits”. It can help create a starting point to explore what employees want.
There’s a lot of conversation in today’s business world about working smarter and being more productive. This often comes with asking employees to “do more with less”. And employees are willing to work hard. But they also expect to have an employee value proposition that aligns with their employee experience. Employee benefits are a part of that complete package.
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