Over the last several years, online enrollment has traditionally been outsourced to legacy-based benefit administration firms that charge per employee, per month fees and cater to large groups. In contrast, 98% of employers in the U.S. have less than 100 employees and cannot afford to outsource.
Four industry executives will share how to overcome that challenge in a March 2 keynote panel, ‘Increasing Volume With Online Enrollment and Call Centers,’ at EBA’s Workplace Benefits Renaissance in Atlantic City, N.J.
“It is certainly possible that if we don’t figure out how to adapt to that change the enrollment firms, the carriers providing the worksite products and the brokers who count on the income from those products will see a future about as bright as a closed casino on the boardwalk in Atlantic City,” says Ron Kleiman, CEO at BenefitVision.
It is no secret that Zenefits and its imitators are using enrollment and HR technology to lure clients and eventually take over as the broker of record.
The self-service model is changing the worksite marketing industry and changing it fast, he adds. “That’s great for platform providers, but what will it mean to those of us who make our living from voluntary benefits?”
In the session, Kleiman, along with Christopher Bernadine, COO at Advanced Voluntary Concepts; Norma Gregorio, director of sales at Employee Navigator and Gil Murdock, principal at Enrollment Advisors, will tackle these questions and more.
“What is the role of an enrollment firm in a self-service environment?,” Kleiman asks. “Many employers are reluctant to have people come on site and disrupt work just to sell insurance.”
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It is part of the drastic and quick changes happening to managing enrollment and other HR functions, adds Gregorio.
“It is no secret that Zenefits and its imitators are using enrollment and HR technology to lure clients and eventually take over as the broker of record,” she says. “There is [also] a tremendous amount of consolidation happening on the brokerage side, which is making it increasingly hard for the average broker to compete with larger houses.”
“Voluntary benefits are gaining increased momentum as an alternate revenue stream, but can be difficult to present to all employees,” she adds. “Simply put, brokers that do not adopt an online enrollment solution will simply not be able to compete, let alone grow their businesses, going forward.”
