Selling ancillary benefits can do wonders for your business – but what about the value-added benefits that come with each plan? Employers are looking to wellness programs and value-added benefits to cut their healthcare costs and keep their employees healthy. Value-added benefits are extremely sought after in the health insurance market today, with health, dental, vision, and life insurance carriers launching their own unique suites of programs and products to make them more accessible and affordable for employers and employees. These supplemental benefits can cover everything from pharmacy discounts to free oral cancer screenings and consultations for hearing aids.

Value-added benefits are a great opportunity for brokers to keep clients and employees happy and engaged with their benefits. Understanding the ins and outs of these additional benefits and educating your clients and their employees on them is critical so they can get the most out of their benefits package. Here are three key things to make sure employers and employees alike know about their value-added benefits so they can take advantage of these great offerings!

• Make sure employees know WHAT value-adds are available

Probably the biggest barrier between employees and their value-added benefits is that employees don’t know they exist. Value-added benefits often aren’t advertised on open enrollment materials, employees might not read carefully enough to see that they are there or understand what exactly they provide. This means one of the most helpful things you can do at open enrollment is make sure you explain the value-added benefits for each plan employees can choose from. Be sure to go over the carrier’s specific name for each value-added benefit as well. That way if employees have any questions or concerns with the benefit, they can easily identify it when they call the carrier’s customer service line.

• Make sure employees know WHY they are useful

It’s also important employees understand why each value-added benefit is useful to them, so they are excited to use them! Make sure employees understand how using value-added benefits can help them improve or maintain their overall health and how these benefits can save them money! If you don’t have enough time during your next meeting to cover why each program is useful, consider creating a handout or flyer that covers how each type of program can help them!

• Make sure employees know HOW to Use Them

The last piece of the puzzle is making sure employees know how to use these benefits. Do they need to sign up for a program with the carrier? Do they need a separate ID card to use the benefits? Employees who have a clear understanding of how to use their benefits are far more likely to use them regularly. Knowing how easy or how hard it is for employees to access value-added benefits can give you valuable insight into which plans and carriers are more focused on making benefits easy for their members to use – which helps you figure out what options to recommend to your clients.

Value-added benefits are a key part of any ancillary benefits package and will continue to be important to employers looking for ways to keep their workforce happy and healthy. Prioritizing these benefits and making sure employees understand their ins and outs can drastically improve their experience with their health plan, keep them engaged, make client retention easier, and help open enrollment meetings go smoother! If you’re wondering about all the different kinds of value-added benefits insurance carriers offer, and how they can help your clients, sign up for a FREE consult with a Solstice sales team member today - just click the image below!