October 2020 edition

Benefits analytics platforms and technologies continue to be important decision-making tools both employees and benefits managers find essential. In fact, 41 percent of benefits professionals said they rely on data analytics tools to determine the efficiency of their existing plans – according to Employee Benefit Adviser’s “Open Enrollment Readiness Benchmark” survey.¹

In addition, savvy benefits managers are leveraging advanced technologies that use artificial intelligence (AI) to help employees better understand their range of benefits.

Here are four reasons why more companies are using decision-support tools to help increase employee benefits engagement – and serve as another communications touchpoint for internal benefits departments short on time and people:

1. Complexity in plan offerings. In an era where benefit choices are getting more complex, some employees struggle to decipher the differences in plan options, so many simply choose to renew every year without changing options.²
2. Mindshare is difficult. Most also don’t think about their benefits beyond the two-week enrollment window. One data analytics company found that 30 percent of employees are confused by their benefits.³
3. Confusing terminology. According to UnitedHealthcare, only 9 percent of employees understand terms such as health plan deductible or out-of-pocket maximum.³
4. Improves employee satisfaction of benefits. Since more than half of workers will leave a job at one time or another for better benefits,² using decision-making tools to help employees better understand their benefit choices also benefits employers.

Tools from Securian Financial

One benefits decision-making tool employers can choose for their life and voluntary products is Benefit Scout™. It’s an interactive, digital platform that uses AI to help guide employees through the decision process. The result is less guesswork for employees and fewer questions for human resources staff. Like other similar AI-infused tools, Benefit Scout also offers employees cost calculators and virtual chatting to aid decision making.

To solidify our commitment to cutting-edge technologies that help employers improve benefits offerings, Securian Financial acquired Empyrean Benefit Solutions – which offers a leading platform for employee benefits enrollment and human resources administration. Its signature decision support tool is Pilot+, a recommendation engine built on 10 years of proprietary data and research. Pilot+ shows employees their current plan performance, powered by their individual health care claims data, encouraging year-round engagement in their plan.

Improving benefit enrollment

For benefits consultants, the evolution and availability of advanced decision-making tools like these continue to improve employee engagement during benefits enrollment – while easing the workload of busy HR staffs. The result: happier employees AND benefits professionals.

Learn more

Want to learn more about Benefit Scout or Pilot+ and how these solutions can help your company? We can answer your questions and discuss what options work best for you and your employees. Contact us.