During annual enrollment, USAble Life helps more than 2,400 diverse organizations and a half-million employees navigate the enrollment terrain. For some, it can be a bumpy ride. Here are some tips based on our years of experience in every facet of enrollment to help you achieve higher participation and more satisfied employees with minimal troubleshooting.
1. Understand enrollment conditions.
It’s important to assess the group thoroughly and understand the conditions in which enrollment will take place. Will employees enroll onsite? Are the group’s employees located in multiple locations or one? What role will technology play in the enrollment process? Is the group’s employment stable or will turnover influence participation? All are important questions to answer in the planning stages, well before groups begin communicating with employees. Thinking through these issues with your enrollment team ahead of time will help you choose the right enrollment method.
2. Clean your data.
When the bill isn’t right, everyone is frustrated. At USAble Life, we’ve learned that clean employee data on the front end means fewer billing problems on the back end. If your groups are exporting employee census data to USAble Life or another carrier for enrollment set up, it’s important to provide the most complete, accurate data possible. Incomplete or inaccurate data can result in incorrect payroll deductions and can delay or completely stall an employee’s application for coverage. Remind your groups to scrub their data and to consider sending a simple spreadsheet ahead of time so that applications can be prepopulated.
3. Overcommunicate.
Are your groups having a hard time getting employees to tune in? If your groups need to send daily emails to make sure benefits communication gets the attention it deserves, they shouldn’t apologize. Don’t take your foot off the gas when it comes to communication during this time. It’s always better to overcommunicate. USAble Life can support group communication efforts in a number of ways. We recently worked with a group that conducted enrollment through their call center. Employees were asked to call into the center during the enrollment period to make their benefit choices. This group reached out to us in advance, and we arranged to provide them with daily reports of employees who had not enrolled. Those employees received follow-up emails from the group administrator every day. With ongoing, targeted communication, this group had a highly successful enrollment. Remind your groups that the optimized AccessAbleSM* platform offers built-in, online communications tools.
4. Consider mandatory participation.
Some employees may need more encouragement than others to engage in the enrollment process. Groups may need to designate some part of the enrollment process as required. Some options include requiring all employees to update their dependent and beneficiary information to drive participation and engagement. Other groups may offer a special benefit — wellness, for example — as a “hook” to encourage employees to log in and review their benefits information. This approach ensures that employers have done their due diligence to reach out to all employees with the opportunity to enroll.
5. Engage USAble Life early.
A group may have every high-tech enrollment tool, but employees still need guidance to understand their benefit options. At USAble Life, we believe deeply in the importance of ancillary insurance protection — life, disability, critical illness, accident, hospital confinement, and more. We can help you educate your groups and their employees about the value of this essential coverage throughout the sales and enrollment process. Engage your USAble Life Regional or Implementation Services Manager sooner, rather than later. He or she can help you provide the very best customer experience.
6. Communicate post-enrollment.
We often find that groups go silent after everyone is enrolled. Particularly for groups with low participation, ongoing communication throughout the year is important to boost participation and educate employees about the importance of supplemental insurance. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.
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