As an insurance broker, you hold group benefit meetings regularly. But, how do you know whether your meetings are hitting the mark and benefitting your audience? Here are tips to ensure that your group benefit meetings really are of benefit to clients:

Key Benefits to Employees

Employees likely conceptually understand the benefits of a health insurance policy. But did you know that they may not be aware that their main policy doesn’t include ancillary benefits like vision and dental health insurance?

• Start by pointing out to company decision-makers that employees may be in the dark about dental and health care exclusions in their main policies. Underscore that educating employees about coverage issues is preventive. It wards off potential conflicts between the company and its employees when employees attempt to access dental or vision care.
  
  
• Vision and dental insurance matter, too, because out-of-pocket costs for these services can be costly even for routine visits. If the employee has children, the costs without insurance can become prohibitive—resulting in avoiding routine checkups and all but the emergency care that the main policy may cover.
  
  
• Having insurance coverage often also lowers the costs for those vision and dental services not covered by ancillary policies.
  
  
• Oral and vision care have major health benefits as well, starting with prevention and early detection. For example, routine dental hygiene prevents bacterial buildup and associated diseases which can affect the whole body. Oral checkups can also detect oral cancers. And, eye checkups can detect diabetes as well as other eye conditions.
  
  
• Healthy teeth and eyes affect our overall well-being including our cardiovascular health.
  
  
• Routine checkups translate into fewer days missed from work and from school. For employees with children, that means fewer days those employees are absent from work when their children have eye or dental issues that require care.

Key Benefits to Employers

Why do employers buy any health insurance coverage for their employees? Two main reasons: keeping their employees happy and keeping them healthy so they miss fewer work days. Employers just need help connecting the dots to apply those same reasons to offering ancillary insurance. It helps retain happy employees and keeps them working.

• Point out that employees with families will be happier and miss fewer days, too, if their family members stay healthy.
  
  
• Remind company decision-makers looking to hire new staff that offering ancillary insurance makes them more competitive in the marketplace for employees as well.
  
  
• Note that offering ancillary benefits as part of an overall policy is less costly to the employer, and that packages can be tailored to meet the financial and staff-related needs of the company.

In short, the benefits of offering ancillary insurance are that they boost the company’s image in the eyes of employees, help keep employees on the job, and help family members stay healthy. Who wouldn’t want those benefits?