Employers Get Creative with Tight Budgets....
Voluntary benefits are on the rise, but why is that the trend we are seeing? The economy is in recovery, but it is and will continue to be a slow climb up a very tall mountain. Company belts have not loosened and with the overall impact of healthcare reform still uncertain, it still may be quite some time before they let those belts out a notch or two.
According to HR Daily Report, this is why more employers are looking at Voluntary Benefits as a lower-cost incentive to attract new and retain existing talent. Employers are taking to offering employees everything from auto and home insurance to legal plans or even pet insurance. All of these being growing trends in employers looking to stay competitive. That's the assertion at a recent presentation at the 2011 Health Care Benefits NY conference. Outlined in the course of that presentation was a list of the most popular group voluntary benefits, now and in the future.
Most popular now included:
- life insurance
- disability (long and short-term plans), and
- vision plans
- long-term care
- legal plans, and
- auto and home insurance
- Because it provides protection against lost income, disability insurance (short and long-term) is perhaps the most popular voluntary benefit today.
- The financial security afforded by life insurance makes it an especially popular voluntary benefit in uncertain economic times. While term life is still most prevalent, a "fight to qualify" among employers and employees is making permanent life insurance more popular.
- Voluntary dental insurance holds great appeal to both employees and employers because you can design plans so that it is not very expensive.
- Relatively new among voluntary benefits, supplemental limited-benefit plans that provide a set dollar amount per day for hospital stays are gaining popularity, as are gap insurance policies that pay a certain amount up to a deductible.
- More targeted in their coverage, but also appealing, especially to small businesses with high-deductible plans, are supplemental accident insurance and critical illness insurance.