Insurance Awareness Day on 6/28 | 📩 Client Resources
Published: 06.26.2024
What is National Insurance Awareness Day?
Each year on June 28th, we celebrate National Insurance Awareness Day. This is a great opportunity to review our insurance policies to ensure we have the proper coverage in place to meet evolving needs and determine areas of improvement.This midpoint in the year is especially important when it comes to reviewing your health insurance and employee benefits policies. It allows ample time to prepare for the open enrollment period, which takes place in the fall for most employers with health plans effective January 1 each year.
5 reasons why it is important to review health insurance and employee benefits plans.
Employee Satisfaction
Employee benefits play a significant role in overall employee satisfaction and morale. Provide opportunities for employees to voice their opinions on their current benefits—for example by conducting an online survey or encouraging open communication with HR or their direct managers.By reviewing and updating your benefits offerings to meet the evolving needs and preferences of your workforce, you not only can increase job satisfaction and engagement but also positively impact your employees’ overall health and wellbeing.
Stay Competitive
Regular reviews of your benefits help ensure you remain competitive and attract and retain the best talent. Understand what other companies in your industry are offering in terms of products, packages and cost so that you can stand out when negotiating with potential candidates.
Stay Ahead of the Trends
The employee benefits industry is continuously evolving, with new products and options always becoming available. While it’s easy to fall into the same routine and stick with what is comfortable, it is important to review new choices and options for coverage.There are extensive options available beyond traditional medical plans, such as Self-Funded Plans, Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs), Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs), and Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs).
By understanding the trends and new solutions, you can ensure you’re offering your employees the best coverage for their needs while simultaneously managing company costs.
Learn about 7 Overlooked and Underutilized & Overlooked Employee Benefits.
Controlling Costs
Yearly reviews allow employers to assess the cost-effectiveness of their benefits offerings. By analyzing your company’s claims data, you can better understand what employees are seeking care for and which doctors or healthcare providers they are using.This can help you uncover if there are certain health issues or treatments among your employee population that are driving costs. From there, you can implement valuable programs or shift your benefits offerings to better address these concerns, helping employees better manage these issues and drive down costs.
Additionally, you may find there are benefits that employees are simply not using. In this case, you can either use this as an opportunity to better promote the offering and utilization among your employees or completely remove it from your employee benefits packages, saving you valuable dollars in unnecessary spending.
Compliance and Risk Management
The employee benefits landscape is complex with regulations and employer responsibilities continually subject to change. Regular reviews help employers stay informed about updates to state and federal laws and regulations, ensuring that their benefits programs remain compliant with current legislation.Regulations and programs such as COBRA, FMLA, ERISA and Medicare all include complicated requirements which employers need to be aware of and which might be affected by factors such as changing group size.
By failing to meet certain compliance requirements, employers can incur costly fines and put both employees and their company at risk.
How do health insurance and employee benefits brokers help their employer clients understand their options?
Regular reviews of employee benefits plans are crucial for maintaining competitiveness, compliance and employee satisfaction while also managing costs and staying ahead of industry trends.This process can be extremely time-consuming and impractical for most companies. That is why it is important for employers to align themselves with industry experts and a well-versed employee benefits broker.
Employee benefits brokers help employers review their options throughout the year and suggest areas of improvement based on the company’s overall goals and budget.
