While the insurance industry as a whole has made some strides in deploying technology to achieve efficiencies, the area of employee benefits is underserved. Generally, employee benefits remain mired in traditional low- or legacy-tech ways of administering these all-important amenities, hindering the industry’s ability to create much-desired modern solutions and elevate experiences to levels we are all accustomed to across banking, ecommerce, entertainment and more. 

Employee-sponsored benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans  play an essential role in American life, yet they are hard to access and use. Just 9% of employees understand benefits terms like coinsurance; meanwhile, choosing the wrong health plan can be a $2,000 mistake. 

A recent Harris Poll consumer survey of 2,000 employed adults with employer-sponsored insurance benefits reported that nearly half the respondents cited frustration when using their insurance benefits because they are hard to understand. Meanwhile, two in five indicated they have received inaccurate bills, been unable to access care or been harmed to delays because of errors in their insurance coverage.

In an era when consumers expect a seamless experience across the board, insurance carriers must focus on elevating the customer experience to keep pace. This shift is forcing stakeholders to apply more “hands and heartbeats” to achieve that experience – when much of that work should be automated and streamlined, and personal touches could be better applied to functions that truly require and benefit from human intervention and care.

Read the full article >