What’s in voluntary benefits for me?

To see how just how valuable proactively and consistently cross-selling worksite voluntary benefits (WVB) is for you and your business, let’s tune into everyone’s favorite radio station, WII-FM, which stands for: What’s in it for me?

Frankly, this is a question we all ask about any product or service we’re presented with, for business or personal use. It’s no different with worksite voluntary — why should you invest your time and effort to cross-sell these products? Here are a few thoughts.

Grow your business

Every broker tells me they want to grow their business and its value. Worksite voluntary can help you grow your book, your top line and your bottom line. There is no other product or service outside medical more lucrative than WVB. Don’t let group voluntary mislead you; worksite commissions are much larger than what group voluntary pays (average net commission to the agency is $56 per eligible employee).

If you want to add groups to your book, voluntary can be a powerful differentiator, allowing you to bring valuable HR solutions to your employer clients, usually with no impact on the client’s budget. WVB gives you a packed toolbox full of valuable no-cost solutions to problems the client wants to solve.

Fix HR problems

Most brokers think worksite voluntary is just a product play. To the contrary, WVB is a consultative sale, a solution sale and, as such, can help you become a consultative adviser.

Consultative selling is key to benefit brokers remaining relevant in the post-reform era. It’s about identifying client pain points — problems that cost the client time, money, and, ultimately, profit — and solving them to earn compensation. Thus, being consultative requires you to have a broad array of solutions to clients’ problems. As brokers become more consultative, they will need more solutions in their toolbox to solve more problems. Voluntary, especially through the enrollment process, gives you the tools to solve many different HR problems — again, at no cost to the client.  

What kind of problems can you solve with voluntary?

1. Eliminate paper applications during open enrollment
2. Provide personalized benefit education to employees
3. Give your clients a full-featured benefit administration system

The voluntary toolbox has many more no-cost HR solutions for your clients, which any good carrier rep can share with you. And since voluntary benefits are lucrative for the broker, you can get paid to solve pressing HR problems.
A value-laden proposition

There is a reason worksite voluntary is the only strategy that gets two chapters in DO or DIE, my book on agency reinvention. For the broker who wants to remain relevant, lock down his clients, and establish a meaningful new revenue stream to remain profitable, worksite voluntary benefits is an easy and obvious call — once you see beyond WVB as a product play.

Cross-selling worksite voluntary benefits can provide you with tremendous value: Helping you differentiate yourself, letting you solve serious HR problems for clients at no cost to the client, and growing your book and your revenue. That’s a lot of value for a single line of business.

Griswold is an agency growth consultant. Reach him at (615) 656-5974.