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Employee Benefits: Setting up for Health Insurance Success

Elizabeth Woodard

Elizabeth Woodard

employee benefits

employee benefits

Simply having a health insurance plan available to your employees is no longer enough to ensure that they actually enroll. This can be incredibly frustrating for any business, as healthcare is part of any reputable company’s employee benefits package.

It can be baffling to not know why your health insurance is not being utilized by all employees, but there could be a few key things standing between you and company-wide health insurance success. Read and consider the below questions very carefully to find out how you can set up health insurance success for your employees.

Do Your Employees Know about Your Health Insurance Options?

If the answer is yes: As long as you’re absolutely sure the information was processed, great! Making sure employees are aware of your health insurance plan is the first step, and you’ve got that covered. Move on to the next question.

If the answer is no: If you’re at all uncertain about whether or not your employees are actually aware of your health insurance plans then it’s time to consider seriously upgrading your employee benefits communication. Studies have shown that most emails get completely ignored by people who receive them. This shouldn’t be surprising considering that most people get tens or even hundreds of emails a day. Employees are only human, and have a limited amount of time they can spend reading emails that come their way.

If you’re still sending out generic emails as your primary method of employee communications, you’re getting lost in the shuffle. An engaging digital postcard or another type of video communication will show your employees what health insurance plans your company has to offer in a way that will capture and keep their attention. Not only are employee video communications more effective for health insurance success, they allow you to use real-time engagement measuring and tracking to be certain that it is totally effective.

Have You Scheduled a Reminder Close to the Deadline?

Recruitment and Retention

If the answer is yes: Perfect. You’re a great planner and can skip on down to the next question.

If the answer is no: You should set a reminder to send your employees messages/emails/video communications closer to the deadline for signing up. There is a reason that companies use ‘buy today or the deal is gone forever’ sales language. It works by creating a sense of urgency which makes a person want to act in that moment instead of putting it off.

If your employees get notice of your health insurance plan six months before the last day to sign up, they’ll think ‘I have plenty of time to sign up, I’ll do it later.’ This often leads to employees completely forgetting about the deadline. However, if you don’t tell your employees their health insurance options until one day before the deadline your employees will panic and likely not sign up due to feeling overwhelmed.

The right way to handle this is with a happy middle ground. Send out a long form informational employee video communication thoroughly covering your company’s health insurance options a month or two before the deadline. Then, send reminder follow up notifications a week before the deadline with another sent a day before the deadline.

Can Your Employees Afford Company Health Insurance on Their Salary?

If the answer is yes: You are in touch with your employee’s needs and can move down to the next question.

If the answer is no: No matter how attractive your health insurance plan is, if your employees cannot afford it they will not enroll. Considering that millennials became the largest work force demographic in 2016 and that 63% of those millennials have over $10,000.00 in student loan debt your workers’ budgets are tighter than ever.

Take a hard look at your company budget to see if it’s possible to incorporate raises in the form of health insurance or lower the cost of health insurance to make it affordable for employees. If your full-time employees are choosing not to buy health insurance because their salaries are too low, that is a cause for serious concern.

Does Your Company Have a Problem with Corporate Culture, Morale, or High Turnover?

If the answer is yes: This is a huge problem for health insurance success. If your company has a problem with turnover, why would employees buy health insurance? They aren’t sticking around long enough to need it. Additionally, a problem with corporate culture and morale can lead to deep distrust between employees and management. This distrust translates into your employees not believing you have their best interests in mind when it comes to anything, let alone health insurance. Take an honest look at your company, because a happy, stable workforce with a positive company culture and low turnover rate is the key to health insurance success for your employees.

If the answer is no: If you have responded well to all these questions you have set up health insurance success for your employees and should be proud.

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