Product Trends/Success Stories

• MetLife's 2008 Web-based Benefits Benchmarking Tool offers strategic insight across 35 topics

  When it comes to benchmarking employee benefit plans, employers and their broker partners have a wealth of valuable information at their fingertips that can come in handy for the upcoming open-enrollment season.

• Group critical illness coverage: an affordable benefit that protects employees more completely

  In the event of a serious illness, a common misperception is that as long as employees have health and disability plans, they have the complete protection they need to recover financially.

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• Guardian fits voluntary benefits into small-market segment

  In the face of health care volatility and economic uncertainty, small and midsize business owners have expressed concerns about managing their employee benefits programs. According to a 2007 Guardian Life study, Benefits & Behavior, The Voice of American Business Owners and Benefit Decision Makers Today, they cited controlling medical costs as their most serious business challenge.

• Research spotlights need for guidance, retiree health and wellness incentives

  New industry research suggests a significant opportunity awaits brokers and advisers to help the employees of their clients understand health plan saving vehicles, group medical coverage terms and ways to better anticipate health care needs in retirement. They also could play a pivotal role encouraging the use of incentives to boost participation in wellness programs and maintain healthy lifestyles.

• MetLife research suggests benefits innovation to help smaller firms compete for talent

  Since large employers can use economies of scale to offer generous benefits, the pressure is on brokers and advisers to suggest that their smaller-market clients be as innovative as possible when competing for talent.

• MetLife research offers Rx for improving open enrollment, targeting life stages

  With summer just around the corner, now is as good a time as any for brokers and advisers to heed the warning of leading industry research as they suggest ways in which employers can improve the experience of their workers during the coming open-enrollment season.

• Disability Insurance Awareness Month casts spotlight on why coverage is critical

  Employers, brokers and insurance carriers will have their hands full in May, which is now known for yielding much more than flowers from April showers thanks to its designation as Disability Insurance Awareness Month (DIAM) for the past two years.

• Key to voluntary benefits success: enrollment and post-enrollment support

  One of the biggest obstacles to a successful voluntary benefits offering is meeting a minimum employee participation requirement. If not enough employees sign up, then there's no plan. That's why enrollment and post-enrollment support are so critical to a program's success.

• Guardian emerging as pioneer of innovative dental benefits coverage

  For half a century, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America has sought to strike a delicate balance on providing the right group dental insurance at the right price point that satisfies several key stakeholders. The challenge is allowing employers and benefit brokers to achieve their business imperatives while also recognizing that coverage decisions are intensely personal and will vary from one consumer to the next.

• BrokerSuite offers turnkey solution for benefits enrollment in small, midsize market

  David Koch, CEO and founder of Two River Benefits Consultants, LLC, used to only focus on benefits and knew in his heart of hearts that a full-service administration system would be well-received by clients.

• A broker's role: Help employers make the most of their benefit plans

  Brokers have a unique opportunity in today's market to serve their employer clients by helping them maximize the potential of employee benefit plans, particularly when it comes to worker health and wellness.

• 'Person-centric' approach to health management emerging as key to behavior modification

  A simple truth lies at the heart of Corporate America's struggle to rein in health care costs: Employees are consuming more health care than before.

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• Best companies for benefits go one-on-one

  Principal's latest iteration of its annual "10 best companies for employee financial security" offers advisers and brokers several guideposts for helping their clients get recognition.

• Uninsured don't inflate insured premiums much

  New research from a trio of health policy experts questions the commonly held belief that the insured cover the cost of the uninsured through cost shifting.

• Alabama fights fat, media with new screening program

  Alabama's effort to expand its health screening program has taken over the Web recently. And while most outlets pounced on the "fees for fat" angle, the program's steward says the media frenzy got it all wrong.