What a Recent Health Rosetta Webinar Reveals About the Future of Employee Financial Protection
For years, supplemental health benefits have served an important purpose. They help employees prepare for the unexpected by providing financial support when an accident, serious illness or hospitalization occurs.
But today’s employers are asking more from these programs than ever before. They want to rethink how supplemental benefits are offered and funded. They want to know whether their supplemental benefits are creating meaningful value for employees. They want greater visibility into how these programs perform. And they want confidence that every benefit they offer reflects responsible stewardship of both employee dollars and organizational resources.
Those questions were front and center during a recent Health Rosetta webinar, “Voluntary Benefits Under Fire: What the New Wave of ERISA Litigation Means for Employers and Brokers.” While the webinar explored today’s evolving legal landscape, the discussion quickly became something much broader: how employers can build supplemental benefits programs that are more transparent, more accountable and more valuable for the people they serve.
More importantly, the discussion reflected something many employers are already experiencing firsthand. Expectations around employee benefits are changing. Employers aren’t simply looking for programs that are easy to administer or familiar to the marketplace. They’re looking for benefits that demonstrate measurable value, strengthen employee financial wellbeing and support a broader strategy for attracting and retaining talent. In many ways, supplemental health benefits have become part of a much larger conversation about the role benefits play in the overall employee experience.
As BeneRe Founder Lamont Thurston explained during the webinar, supplemental benefits are increasingly becoming a more important part of employers’ overall benefits strategy. As he puts it, “Supplemental benefits are having their moment.”
Why the Conversation Is Evolving
One of the strongest themes throughout the webinar was that employers are beginning to view supplemental benefits differently, especially in regard to their employees.
As healthcare costs continue to rise, employees are taking on greater financial responsibility through higher deductibles, larger out-of-pocket maximums and increasing healthcare expenses. For many families, a single unexpected medical event can create significant financial hardship.
The conversation is shifting away from simply offering more products and toward creating programs that genuinely help employees navigate those financial challenges. That’s an important distinction. For years, employers often evaluated supplemental benefits based on participation rates and enrollment success. Today, many are asking whether those same benefits are providing meaningful financial protection when employees need it most. Rather than measuring activity, they’re beginning to measure impact – and that subtle shift is changing the way organizations think about supplemental benefits altogether.
In other words, employers aren’t just asking, "Do we offer supplemental benefits?" They’re asking, "Are these the right supplemental benefits?"
Transparency Is Becoming a Strategic Advantage
Another major takeaway from the discussion was the growing importance of transparency.
Employers increasingly want to understand how supplemental benefits perform over time, where premium dollars go and whether employees are receiving meaningful value from the programs they purchase. Rather than relying on assumptions, organizations are looking for data that helps them evaluate the effectiveness of their benefits strategy. That same transparency also helps employers make more informed decisions about future plan design, employee communications and long-term benefits strategy.
Thurston noted that this is exactly what many employers are asking for today: “I’d actually like to see the math. So how do we get more transparency? And then once we have that transparency, what value is going to the employees?”
The result isn’t simply greater accountability – it’s greater confidence. That confidence extends beyond annual enrollment. It gives employers the ability to evaluate long-term trends, identify opportunities to improve their benefits strategy and make more informed decisions in the years ahead. Instead of simply renewing the same programs year after year, organizations can take a more strategic approach to designing benefits that better serve both employees and the business.
A Better Experience for Employers and Employees
Throughout the webinar, speakers also emphasized that supplemental benefits work best when they are designed around employee needs – not simply around enrollment. Employees need benefits they understand, coverage that addresses real financial risks and confidence that the benefits available during open enrollment will actually be there when life takes an unexpected turn.
For employers, that means looking beyond participation rates and asking a more important question: Are our supplemental benefits creating better outcomes for our people? That’s becoming one of the defining questions for today’s employee benefits leaders.
Bringing These Principles to Employers with 100+ Employees
These ideas aren’t new to BeneRe.
For years, BeneRe has helped larger employers improve transparency, accountability and employee value through its group captive model. During the webinar, Thurston shared how those same principles are now available to organizations with as few as 100 employees through BeneRe 100. "We want to make sure the majority of the value is going for the employees," he said.
Designed specifically for employers with 100 or more employees, BeneRe 100 helps organizations rethink what’s possible from supplemental health benefits by delivering greater visibility into program performance, stronger alignment between employer and employee interests and opportunities to maximize the value of every premium dollar.
Rather than asking employers to adopt an entirely new philosophy, BeneRe 100 builds on principles that are already reshaping the industry. Greater transparency. Better alignment between employer and employee interests. More informed decision-making. The same ideas highlighted throughout the Health Rosetta discussion have been central to BeneRe’s approach for years, making BeneRe 100 a natural fit for employers who are ready to think differently about supplemental benefits.
Webinar Polling Told a Similar Story
The webinar discussion wasn’t the only indicator that employer expectations are changing. Throughout the session, attendees participated in live polling that reinforced many of the same themes.
For example, more than 90% of participants said they are actively addressing rising healthcare costs by evaluating plan design changes or adjusting contribution strategies rather than simply absorbing higher expenses. At the same time, nearly every respondent indicated that supplemental benefits are still positioned primarily as part of the enrollment process rather than as a broader employee financial protection strategy.
Taken together, those findings point to an important opportunity. Employers aren’t simply looking for more benefit options – they’re looking for smarter strategies that deliver greater transparency, stronger employee value and better long-term outcomes.
In many ways, the polling echoed the broader conversation throughout the webinar: supplemental benefits are evolving from an enrollment decision into a more strategic component of an organization’s overall employee benefits strategy.
Looking Forward
As employer expectations continue to evolve, supplemental benefits are becoming a more strategic part of the overall employee benefits conversation. Organizations that embrace greater transparency, stronger governance and measurable employee value will be better positioned to build benefits programs that support both their workforce and their business.
That’s exactly what BeneRe 100 was designed to do.
Learn More About BeneRe 100
BeneRe 100 helps organizations with 100 or more employees bring those principles to life through a transparent supplemental benefits model designed to maximize employee value while providing greater visibility into program performance.
To continue the conversation, explore these additional resources:
- BeneRe 100: Learn how BeneRe 100 helps employers with 100+ employees rethink supplemental health benefits through greater transparency, accountability and 100% employee protection.
- Blog: Why Employers Are Rethinking Employee Financial Protection
- Blog: Why the Time Is Right for a Different Approach to Supplemental Health Benefits
- Health Rosetta Webinar: Voluntary Benefits Under Fire: What the New Wave of ERISA Litigation Means for Employers and Brokers