Don't Throw Away Your Benefits Confirmation Statement

Each enrollment period, you should receive a benefits confirmation statement. This statement confirms what benefits you selected for the upcoming enrollment year. In this article, I'll talk about why you want to make sure you get one each year. Plus, you'll want to keep each and every confirmation you receive for as long as you work for your employer.

Why is the Benefits Confirmation Statement Important?

Your benefits confirmation is your receipt that proves what you signed up for at enrollment time. Without it, if there is any question about what you enrolled in, your stuck. That's because you have no record of what you signed up for if you didn't remember it that way.

Because time passes and people forget things easily, what matters most is what's on paper - or PDF in this day and age. Remember, having written proof of enrollment selections matters a whole more than verbal conversations do.

A Simple Example of Why the Confirmation Statement is Important

Let's say that at your initial enrollment you were offered supplemental group term life insurance on a guaranteed issue basis. The amount you could get at the time without any medical questions was $200,000. You decide you need the additional group term life and ask if you could get more than $200,000.

You learn that you if you want, you could go as high as $500,000 with what's called evidence of insurability. That means you have to qualify for it by answering medical questions.

At the time you don't have any health problems and decide you want to do that. Later you learn you were approved for the higher amount and tuck that fact back in the memory banks for later.

Eight years later, unbeknownst to you, your employer decides they are going to make some changes to the benefit plans and the group term life insurance program changes to another insurance carrier.

Now behind the scenes this is what's called a takeover. This means that the insurance company will again make a guarantee issue offer to new employees and "take over" the group life insurance amounts everyone else has already.

Enrollment time comes, only this time, you are in a hurry. You don't have much time to take care of your enrollment this go around. Since your company has face to face enrollments, you meet with the enroller and let them know I'm in a hurry, I just want to keep everything the way it is. So the enroller, zips through your enrollment and gets you on your way.

However, when the take over of the group life occurred, for some reason your benefits didn't carry over the $500,000. The enroller had no idea what you had last year and assumes the system is correct because they can only go by what they are given and aren't involved in the takeover process.

In fact, it's not unusual for enrollers to have no clue what you had the year before and it's not really their fault. They can only work with the information they have been given.

This particular year, you also attained a new five year age band and so the premium was more for the $200,000 than before and you don't notice much difference in your paycheck so nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

That is until a few enrollments later, you finally notice that your benefit confirmation shows you only have $200,000 and so you question it. You are told that's what it shows you have. If you want more than that amount, you'd have to provide evidence of insurability again. But unfortunately, you found out last year, you had type 2 diabetes and can't qualify for the higher amount.

In this situation, you'd probably be upset and rightly so. But this is where the benefit confirmation statements from each year can help. It's your proof that when the takeover occurred, someone goofed.

Now technically, it might not be possible to fix this problem. That's because, it's really up to you to make sure everything is done the way you want. It'll depend on the agent the company has. But without the confirmation, you could definitely be out of luck.

Check your confirmation at each enrollment carefully and compare it to last years

At every enrollment, you want to get a confirmation. And it's a good idea to compare it to last year's statement. This will help you confirm that you have what you wanted and also see how it differs from last year.

Check you payroll deductions to make sure they are correct

Once the year begins, take a look at your payroll deductions and make sure they match your confirmation statement as well. These days with all of us on direct deposit, it's easy to never look at your pay stub and just look at the net amount in your bank account and move on.

Paying attention to your payroll deductions can help you spot a problem when it happens.

Conclusion

So, my advice is that each enrollment, get a confirmation statement. Compare it to last years once you receive it. When the new deductions start, confirm your deductions are correct.

It's much easier to correct a problem when it occurs than several years later with no record of what you had before.

Let me know in the comments, if your employer provides you with a benefit confirmation statement at enrollment time. And also let me know if you have had anything similar happen to you.

Ditch the Payroll Deduction for Premium Direct Deposit

In order to offer voluntary benefits, the employer you work with has to collect the employee's premiums through payroll deduction. However, while some employers might not have a problem with you seeing their employees, they might not want to do the payroll deduction for you. In those cases, you could collect the premiums through premium direct deposit instead. In this article, I'm going to go through what premium direct deposit is, how it works and some other things you need to know.

What is premium direct deposit?

Premium direct deposit is an alternative way to collect premiums. Instead of the employer setting up a payroll deduction slot, deducting the premiums and forwarding those premiums to the insurance company, an employee fills out a direct deposit form that is given to the employer. Each paycheck, the amount of the premium direct deposit is forwarded to the insurance company just like a paycheck is.

How does premium direct deposit work?

Premium direct deposit works a little differently behind the scenes than a regular direct deposit does. A normal direct deposit goes into the employees bank account. In the case of a premium direct deposit, the money is deposited in an account created by a third party administrator. Once in the account, the third party administrator sends the money to the insurance company. The third party administrator.

Requirements to make premium direct deposit work

There are few things that are needed to make premium direct deposit work. Let me go through of few of those items.

• Direct deposit slot While most employers are already direct depositing their employees paychecks, employees may already be splitting to multiple accounts. If an employer is limited to two direct deposits slots, and the employee is using both, then it's not possible to direct deposit any more accounts.
• Third party administrator A third party administrator is needed to manage the premium direct deposit accounts.
• Added administration costs The third party administrator will add additional costs to enrollments that will need to be paid by the employee, the benefits broker or the insurance company.
• Individual products Only products that are offered as individual contracts are best suited for premium direct deposit. Group insurance, since it's an agreement between the employer and the insurance company, should be payroll deducted if it requires employee contributions. Permanent life insurance is a type of product that would lend itself better to premium direct deposit since the actual contract is between the employee and insurance company.
• Approval from the insurance company If it's an insurance product, the insurance company will need to ok the collection of premiums via premium direct deposit. Their guarantee issue underwriting offer is contingent on how you set up your case.
• Deductions that stay the same from month to month Premium direct deposit won't work well if payments vary. A fixed amount per direct deposit is that only needs changed once a year or so is ideal.
• A backup collection method The ability to collect premiums via electronic funds transfer at the same frequency of the employees paycheck as an alternate collection method if the employer will not allow premium direct deposit.

Those are a few of the requirements needed to make premium direct deposit work.

Advantages to premium direct deposit

It is easy to see the advantages of premium direct deposit. It reduces the employer's administration.

Another advantage is that the employee's deduction is now completely portable. If the employee leaves their employer, they can request the new employer to set up their premium direct deposit out of a completely different employer's paycheck.

Also, most insurance companies require a certain number of participants to make a bill. This eliminates smaller employers from being prospects. Through premium direct deposit, smaller employers can be pooled into one larger group.

Premium direct deposit would also be a way to work with association, unions or other employers where negotiating a payroll deduction slot is not possible.

Finally, another nice advantage to the premium direct deposit is the fact that it's an employee choice. While an employer may decided to stop deducting for premiums, premium direct deposit provides some insulation that your deduction may being terminated by the employer.

Disadvantages to premium direct deposit

The main disadvantage with premium direct deposit is the added cost to implement it. A larger employer might also view a sizable number of direct deposit initiated at one time just as they would a payroll deduction even though once it's initiated it requires little additional maintenance.

Another disadvantage would be that premium direct deposit is still an employee initiated transaction. You'll need to be proactive in the initial setup of an employee's premium direct deposit as well as any future adjustments.

Conclusion

As health care cost continue to spiral out of control and downward pressure on wages continues to grow, I think it's entirely possible that the day may come when employers find a way to get out of the benefit business entirely.

In fact, today there are already some employers who refuse to do any payroll deductions for employees at all. It's an isolated situation now but as employers and employees can no longer afford health insurance premiums, that minority of employers could grow.

Premium direct deposit would still be available though.

Let me know in the comments if you have any experience with premium direct deposit.

Are Your Group Insurance Rates Attained Age or Issue Age?

Most employees don't realize how the rates work on the group insurance programs they sign up for. How these rates are structured have a big impact on them down the road. There are two types of group insurance rates - attained age rates and issue age rates. In this article I want to walk you through how these rates differ and why it's important.

Let's start first by looking at a sample age band to see how these rates are presented to employees.

A Sample Age Banded Chart

Whether your group insurance rates are attained age or issue age, they will appear as age banded rates. The age bands will be in five or ten year increments. A five year age band will look something like this chart of made up critical illness rates I've listed below:

• Critical Illness Coverage
• $5,000 Benefit
• ------------------
• Weekly Rates
• ------------------
• <25:     $0.99
• 25-29:  $1.05
• 30-34:  $1:75
• 35-39:  $2.35
• 40-44:  $2.80
• 45-49:  $3.87
• 50-54:  $4.93
• 55-59:  $6.25
• 60-64:  $9.65
• 65+:   $13.30

If you are interested in purchasing this $5,000 critical illness insurance benefit, the first step is the same for either type of group insurance rate.

Let's say I am 49 years old and I decide to enroll. Since I haven't turned 50 yet, I'm still in the 45-49 age bracket. My weekly cost according to the bracket would be $3.87 per week.

A lot of employees would simply look at the rate and decide if they could afford it and leave it at that - especially if they don't see a chart that might make them think to ask if the rates increase later or stay the same.

The Difference Between Attained Age Rates And Issue Age Rates

After I've signed up for my critical illness benefit, I'll want to know what my rates might be in the future. In order to find out, I'll need to know whether the rates are attained age or issue age.

Here's a breakdown of the difference in how the rates work for attained and issue ages:

• Attained age rates Attained age rates increase as you get older and move into the next age band. In my example above, next year, my rate would increase from $3.87 per week to $4.93 per week for the same coverage (assuming no changes in rate). When I turn 55, 60 and 65 my rates would continue to increase.
• Issue age rates With issue age rates, I get to always stay at the age of 49 in the chart. That means that my rate that starts at $3.87 per week would be the same next year. Again, that's keeping things simple and assuming the rates would stay the same.

Given a choice between the two, which would you choose? It would make the most sense to be able to choose issue age rates if they are available to you.

Attained Age Rates Price Employees Out Of The Plan

On attained age plans, eventually the rise in rates prices employees out of the plans they got when they were young. While I don't mind this with a product like group term life insurance because you can alway lock in some permanent life insurance that will never change in rate, I'm not as big a fan of critical illness plans that use attained age rate structures.

That's because you'll be tempted to leave the plan as the premium goes up. If employees ask what happens to the rates after the sign up, they might not even participate in the first place.

Promote Issue Age Rates If You Have Them

Employees, especially your younger ones, need to know how great issue age rates are. I recently offered an issue age life insurance plan and encouraged all of the younger employees to take the full guaranteed issue of $100,000 because the rate was so cheap.

Once I explained why it was so important to them, and that they locked in their age, most of the employees I talked with understood the value of it. Had I never explained how the offer worked, many would have likely passed on the offer.

Remember Rates Don't Always Stay The Same And Carriers Can Change 

It's easy to look at the rates above and think they guaranteed. Remember though that group insurance rates can change based on experience. So unless you read otherwise, realize that even if you can lock in your age, your premium might fluctuate some over time.

• REMEMBER: Each group insurance plan works independently of the others. This means you could have issue age rates on a critical illness plan and attained age rates on the life insurance plan. Don't assume just because one plan is one way that they are all the same. You have to check.

Also, keep in mind if you are an employee, that if you have issue age rates this enrollment, there's no guarantee you'll have the same offer next year. Since these are group plans, you don't control what's offered so you have to pay attention at each enrollment.

If you are an employer looking at plans from year to year, you want to think carefully before replacing an issue age plan.

Conclusion

The rate structure on group insurance plans is different from company to company. Whether you are an employee or the person responsible for implementing your employers group benefits, you'll want to ask whether your group rates are attained age or issue age.

This will help you better understand what will happen to your rates down the road.

Let me know what you think about attained age rates vs issue age rates in the comments below.

3 Steps to More Effective Benefits Communication at Enrollment

Over the years, I've noticed employer groups have tried to move away from face-to-face enrollments with employees. Instead, there's been a trend to rely more and more on email and other passive forms of electronic tools to communicate with employees and to enroll benefits.

While it would be nice to have everyone read everything you send out, understand it and enroll without any help, in real life it doesn't work that way. You know many employees don't take the time to read everything if they read it at all.

And since employees are spending a small fortune on their benefits, it only makes sense to take them through a better enrollment process than a self-service approach. We need to do this even though you and I both know they should be more proactive themselves.

So, if you find yourself saying "I've sent out 80 emails and there is only so much I can do," then it might be time to take a more active approach to enrollments.

What I've done here is list three very simple but effective steps that you can use to improve your level of benefit's communication.

Let me walk you through each of these three steps and how they work.

Step 1: Conduct face-to-face benefit presentation meetings where employees know they won't be required to sign up at that session.

The first step is to actually start meeting with employees to walk them through how benefits work. These meetings need to be done by the insurance company or brokers who are experts in how they work.

These meetings can be done with groups of employees at a time or in individual one-on-one sessions. What's most important about these meetings is that employees know that they won't have to buy anything at them. It's information only.

At these meetings, you'll have these major goals:

• Diffuse resistance to hearing the information Many employees don't want to go through an enrollment process where they feel they will be pressured into buying something. By letting employees know up front that this part of the enrollment process is just to explain how the offer works and they can take the information home to review it, helps reinforce a no pressure atmosphere.
• Explain the enrollment process How the enrollment process timeline works is important information. If people know what you need them to do and when you need them to do it, they are more likely to do it. This is the time to explain how the enrollment process works.
• Explain the products and underwriting offers The next goal is to explain how the products work as well as any underwriting concessions that have been made by the insurance company and why they are important. You'd be surprised at how many employees say I didn't know you could do that and enroll in benefits they initially didn't want to hear anything about.
• Answer questions Once you are done, employees usually have questions. You'll want to make sure that they get those answers at that meeting. That's why having experts on hand facilitates this process by making sure they get the right answers to their questions.
• Allows them time to get documentation If employees need to find out social security numbers and things like that, you can let them know.
• Reinforce the enrollment process At the end of this meeting, you want to reinforce the next step of the enrollment process so employees don't forget. If you don't remind them what they have to do, they won't be ready to enroll when you need them to.

That's a good rundown of the first step in the enrollment process. It's all about walking employees through what the offer is, how it works and letting them know what the next steps are.

Before I move onto step 2, here's a video of me talking about the presentation meetings.

Step 2: Give employees a day to review the information to decide what they want to do.

After meeting with the employees, your next step is to let people take it home to take a look at it so they can review it. This step is important for a variety of reasons. Those are:

• It eliminates sales pressure When employees learn you are ok with them taking the information home, it eliminates the pressure that can materialize in the enrollment process. If you skip step 2, employees feel pressured even if you don't care what they do and are just trying to save time. It's not unusual for employees to tell you up front, if they have to decide today, the answer is no. Letting people review stuff privately is what you want even if they don't take advantage of it.
• It gives employees time to review what they have Allowing time to review lets them check and see what they have in place already and how everything fits in with what they have.
• It allows employees to see what their spouse has Employees will often hold up the enrollment process mid enrollment because they suddenly realize they need to check and see what their spouse has. This reduces the number of incomplete employees left to enroll.
• It gives them time to make sure they want what they get Since they can take the information home first, they can talk with their spouse or other family members to get advice. They can check their budget. That way when they sign up for stuff, they'll generally keep it unless some strange circumstance like divorce changes it.
• They can get personal family information If social security numbers or other family documentation is needed, employees will have time to get it.

In order to save time, many enrollments skip step 2 entirely and expect employees to sign up the day they are presented to. This subconsciously puts pressure in the process when it isn't needed even if that isn't your intent.

I typically present one day and let employees know I'll be following up on the next day. This gives them the night to check what they need to but moves the process along.

No matter what followup period you choose, whether it's a day or a week, you'll always have a few employees who need more time. I eventually settled on the next day as follow up because I noticed even if you give employees a week, some will still delay after that amount of time which makes the process take too long.

I'll discuss how to handle employees who tell you that they haven't decided when you follow up in the next step.

Before I move onto that, here's a short video I did about the review step if you have time to watch it.

Step 3: Follow up with employees individually to find out what they want to do.

Finally, your last step is to meet with all of the employees individually to see if they want to sign up. If you have done your job right, then most of the employees will know that you were coming back and have decided what they want to do.

When you followup, your focus is on the following items:

1. You want to answer any outstanding questions The first thing I try and always ask employees is did they have any questions. If they do, then I can make sure those are answered. If not, then I can move onto the next step.
2. Find out if they want to enroll or not Next, I found out what they want to enroll in if anything. If they want to sign up, I take care of those requirements and let them know what to expect in terms of deductions and when they will receive their paperwork.
3. Accept the no's If I followup with an employee and they say they don't want to do anything, I accept that and move on. It's important to accept these answers and move on so that you don't pressure employees. You've presented the offer, you let them review it and they decided. Accept it.
4. Handle the undecideds The last item on the agenda is to handle those employees who for whatever reason weren't able to decide and work out a plan to followup with them. I let those employees know that I'll be back the next day to followup and repeat the above process. After that, for the most part, those employees who don't know on the second followup day just aren't comfortable saying no to you. Not always, but most of the time. So, I just let them know how to followup with me. If I don't hear from them, I just consider them no's and move on.

The main thing about the followup process is that you live up the how you said the enrollment process was going to work and don't go trying to turn no's into yes's and start pressuring employees.

When you do that your enrollments this way, subconsciously everyone realizes that you are there just to help. And that's what you want.

Before I wrap this up, here's one last video that talks about the followup step in more detail.

Conclusion

While these steps are simple in nature, they are extremely important. If you try and cut corners by combining steps or by dropping the ball and not following up, your enrollments won't be nearly as beneficial to the group you are working with.

However, when you follow these steps, you'll be able to know that employees truly understood the benefits and offers that were made to them and made a decision based on real information that you wanted communicated to them in the first place.

This three step process is by far the most effective way to communicate benefits information to your employees.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments. I'll be happy to help.

The Employee's Guide to Open Enrollment

The end of the year is the most common time for employer groups to enroll employees in their core benefits like health, dental and vision insurance. But as much as employers try to prepare their employees for enrollment time, many employees don't put as much time as they should into the benefit selection process.

In fact, most employees don't read benefit information that's sent out, don't attend benefit meetings and show up without important enrollment information to facilitate the process. Instead, many usually approach enrollment with the "just give me what I had last year" approach.

Because of that, I thought I would write down some important tips for employees to help get them ready to either self enroll in their benefits or be more ready to discuss their benefits with a benefits counselor who might assist them.

With that in mind, here's my employee's guide to be better prepared for open enrollment.

• Pay attention to the benefit information sent to you Prior to enrollment, you'll probably receive information about any changes, updates and other related information. Read it so you know what's going on.
• Attend any pre-enrollment benefit meetings These meetings are a great time to learn more about which benefits you should enroll in and why. Don't assume you know everything. Even if you don't think you will take advantage of an offer made to you, at least hear the offers.
• Review your spouses benefits Many employees don't think to check into what benefits their spouse has enrolled in until they sit down with a benefits counselor. Make sure you review what your spouse has before you enroll so when you get to enrollment you'll have a clear idea of what you want to do and don't have to check and come back.
• Check for spousal carve out provisions Do either you or your spouse's employer have a spousal carve out that prevents you from covering the other spouse at their employer?
• Consider continuing coverage on dependents Make sure that you consider your children into overall medical cost for your whole family.
• Review last year's medical expenses Did you meet your deductibles? How much did you spend on prescriptions, copayments and coinsurance. Knowing this information will make it easier to determine which medical plan is right for you and your family.
• Compare the summary of plan benefits for each medical plan Read each plan's Summary of Benefits & Coverages and pay close attention to the premiums, deductibles, copayments and coinsurance for each one.
• Don't base your selection on lowest premium Most plans that cost less require more out of pocket when you use the plan. If you are a heavy user of your medical insurance, it might be better to choose a higher premium since you'll most likely spend that amount anyway. Remember premiums are pretax benefits. If you don't use an HSA or outspend your FSA, that'll most likely be paid with after tax dollars.
• Check your networks Make sure the medical, dental and vision providers you use are in the networks of the plans you enroll in. Most insurance companies put their networks online for you to review. When you check for your providers, make sure you are looking at the correct networks. Insurance companies often have more than one network.
• Make an estimate of your medical insurance needs for next year Are you having any procedures in the upcoming plan year? Do you think the upcoming year will be basically the same as last year?
• Consider utilizing either the Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or Health Savings Account (HSA) If you are heavy user of your medical plan, an FSA might be a better option for you since you might end up not having enough to save. The idea behind an HSA is to be able to save money from year to year. So if you don't ever go to the doctor an HSA will be more attractive to you. 
• Check your FSA balance Since an FSA contribution can be lost if you don't claim it, you want to see if your FSA is use it or lose it or has a carry over provision so make sure you check your balance. 
• Get your wellness screenings done Does your plan give a rate reduction for completing your wellness screenings. Be sure and take advantage of it.
• File wellness claims Some benefits offer annual wellness benefits. Make sure you file those claims to receive any wellness cash you have a right to claim.
• Get your tobacco surcharge removed If there are any tobacco users in your family and the medical plans have a tobacco surcharge, see if a tobacco cessation program will get that surcharge removed and enroll in it. Your plan might reduce the rate just by going through the program even if you don't manage to quit.
• Don't lie on insurance applications Your coverages are based on your truthful answers on applications. If you lie about smoking or other treatment related questions, your insurance may not pay out in those circumstances. Insurance companies do check things before they pay claims.
• Visit with benefit's counsellors If there are representatives on site to help you enroll in your plans, be sure and go see them without people having to hunt you down.
• Don't wait til the last minute to enroll Benefits counsellors are usually paid a flat daily rate no matter what you enroll in. Each day you drag out the process costs money. In addition, enrollments are on tight deadlines. If you miss the deadline, you might be out of luck.
• Have your family information Show up prepared with your families names, birthday's and social security numbers ready. Insurance carriers often change from year to year. Your information often doesn't carry over.
• Bring last year's enrollment confirmation Remember, in most cases, these benefits are structured under what is called a "group contract". Because carriers can change from year to year, benefits are sometime taken over by the new carrier. Your coverage might be an exception to the rules of the new company. These exceptions are often grandfathered in. But you'll need to pay attention to your statement or you could lose that exception and might not know you did. I've heard of employees losing out on benefits because things slipped through the cracks. Benefits counsellors might not be provided with your selections from the previous year.
• Pay attention to pre-existing condition clauses Insurance plans are sometimes subject to a pre-existing condition clause. If you are pregnant and want to enroll in short term disability, there's a good chance that will be considered a pre-existing condition and not covered. Pre-existing condition clauses are often grandfathered in when carriers change. 
• Change beneficiaries if needed Make sure you verify your life insurance beneficiaries are who you want them to be. Otherwise, your ex-spouse might be very happy when you die.
• Convert or remove child term life riders Children covered under term life insurance riders will expire at certain ages. Premiums will continue in many cases unless you remove it even if your children are to old to be covered. If you are interested in converting a child term rider, you want to make sure you don't miss the opportunity before it expires.
• Understand age reduction schedules if you are 65 Group term life insurance often reduces once you reach age 65. Every plan is different. Don't be surprised if no one knows what happens but check into it and find out.
• Understand the difference between attained age and issue age plans Group plans are set up with specific rate structures. Some are set up to change as you get older. Review these benefits annually to see if it still makes sense to keep it. Issue age plans keep you at the age you were when you signed up. If you get offered issue age plans when you are young, this can really save you money down the road. Keep in mind that group coverage isn't guaranteed to never change. Plans can and do change so you have to verify whether things are based on your attained age or your issue age each year. Each benefit could be different too! 
• Enroll in your retirement plan Insurance isn't your only concern at enrollment time. Don't forget about your retirement contributions. Make sure to take advantage of any company match and consider increasing your contribution each year.
• Consider each benefit option carefully Make sure you understand how each benefit being offered works before you turn it down. I've seen employees turn down options without even knowing how much it costs. Depending on your age, some of these benefits are cheaper than you think. I try and make sure each employee knows how much their benefit options cost. After finding out the cost and how something works, many employees I've talked to sign up for things they would have skipped because they didn't want to know.
• Take advantage of guaranteed issue If you have any medical problems, make sure you take advantage of any guaranteed issue offers that come your way. The "no one ever told me about it" excuse doesn't work once that enrollment closes.
• Are you retiring soon? Understand which benefits you can keep when you leave and how much they cost.
• Read your confirmation carefully Everybody does their best to make sure your elections are what you requested and that grandfathered coverages carried over but sometimes mistakes can happen. Your benefits confirmation statement is your proof you enrolled if there are any questions.
• Make sure you can afford your selections It's easy to sign up for stuff and not pay attention to how much you are spending. The last thing the insurance companies want you to do is sign up for stuff and then cancel it. That costs everyone money. Sign up for what you know you will keep.
• Keep a list of your insurance companies and agents Make a list of all insurance companies, register for online access, and get agent names and phone numbers.
• Make a folder of all benefit elections Keep all enrollment confirmation, plan documents, agent phone numbers in one place so you can refer to it during the year.
• Download mobile apps for insurance companies you have benefits with Many insurance companies have apps that make it easier to determine in network providers, flexible spending account balances and more. Take the time to download these.
• Confirm your deductions Once your deductions start, make sure they match what you signed up for.
• Keep an eye out for ID cards Any ID cards you'll need to confirm your benefits should arrive later. Some are mailed to you but some have to be looked up online and printed out.

Those are some steps you can take to make open enrollment go a lot smoother for you. So at your next open enrollment, take the time to get the most out of it.

If you have any questions or additional tips about how to prepare and enroll in your benefits, please put them in the comments below.

5 Reasons a Face-to-Face Enrollment is Needed

The biggest challenge I face in helping your employees is negotiating the access I need with you. If I can't work out a plan to see your employees, I can't present a guaranteed issue offer to them. Below, I've summarized five specific reasons why I need to meet with your employees in a face-to-face enrollment. This is to help you get a better understanding of why it's necessary so that you'll grant me the access I need.

The problem is that the insurance company will only let me make that offer when I can arrange to meet with your employees. If I can't get that arranged then I can't give employees guaranteed issue.

The biggest losers in that situation are the employees who have medical problems.

So in this article, I wanted to talk about why I need to see your employees and the benefits the employer gets when they allow me to do a face-to-face enrollment.

With all of the talk that's going on today about insurance exchanges and electronic enrollments, it appears as if letting computers do all of the enrollment work is the ideal way to help your employees. The push in this direction is what the big players in the industry will have you believe is the right course to take. Yet, after 20 years of enrollments, I still specialize in meeting with employees in a face-to-face enrollment for all my programs because it's the right way to help your employees and it's also the right thing to do.

My experience in personally walking thousands of employees through the process I will walk you through below tells me that eventually, if the big players have their way, knowing how to effectively do what I do will fast become a lost art. The real losers in that battle though, will ultimately be your employees and the quality of the offers they receive from insurance companies.

In this article, I wanted to share my reasons for not abandoning the face-to-face enrollment and then spend some time talking about the right approach for how to conduct a face-to-face enrollment - the right way.

First, let's talk about the reasons why face to face enrollments are so important to your employees.

• I can get the best possible underwriting offer When I take a proposal to an insurance company, the first thing that insurance company wants to know from me is what kind of enrollment it's going to be. How I answer that question determines how good the offer I'll get back is going to be. If I tell them that it's an email campaign, self-elected computer enrollment, some insurance companies just aren't even interested. Those that are, will be very conservative in the offers they'll make. However, if I can assure the carrier that the offer they put on the table will indeed be communicated and explained to the employees, the offer I will get back will be very good. Because of that, to get the best possible offers and underwriting concessions from the insurance company, it's in everyone's best interest to conduct a face-to-face enrollment.
• Employees with medical problems need the coverage I can't tell you how often I've been thanked by employees I've helped obtain insurance that just couldn't get coverage anywhere else. Those employees that are uninsurable are truly thankful to be able to enroll in lifetime coverage that no one can take away from them and will gladly pay 100 percent of the premiums. The only reason that employees who have medical problems are able to get all the medical and other requirements waived and get covered was because of my commitment to doing a well communicated face-to-face enrollment to all employees.
• Employees don't have agents that help them anymore Seeing people face to face is expensive. Years ago, lots of life insurance was purchased at the kitchen table. But now, many agents don't even call on families anymore because they can't afford to. If you don't have a sizable income or estate, it's unlikely you'll even hear from an agent - ever. Therefore, many employees don't ever see any agent and by extension get no insurance advice.
• Employees want and need the education One of the most common phrases I hear after I meet with an employee is that they didn't know they could do what I told them they could do and they were happy to learn exactly how the underwriting offer worked to their advantage. In fact, because I've talked to so many people over the years who were so very grateful that I explained things to them, it's the main thing that drives me to continue to stress the importance of a face-to-face enrollment just so they don't miss out.
• Employees need the focus Everyone is so busy. People work shifts. Kids are in so many events. After work, people are exhausted, many employees do what I do and that's just take a nap. Making time to focus on what's available helps those employees tremendously.

IMPORTANT CONCEPT: Of all of those reasons I've listed above, getting the very best possible underwriting offer from the insurance company is the single most important benefit for conducting a face-to-face enrollment.

Now that you have some background about why I'm so committed to my process, it's time to walk you through the actual steps I take to get it done as easily and smoothly as possible.

I personally have four objectives when I conduct an enrollment. Those are:

1. Do the enrollment for you My first objective is to do all of enrollment work for you. Many agents expect you to enroll your employees for them and do all of the legwork of the enrollment for them. I see it the exact opposite way. It's my job to do the enrollment. Obviously, I need your support but it's up to me to do the work at hand. After all, that's what you hired me to do.
2. Make sure each employee at least hears the offer My second objective is to walk each employee through the offer so they at least know what the offer is that is available to them and that they decide what they want to do to satisfy the underwriting requirements.
3. Complete the enrollment quietly My third objective is to do the enrollment in such a way that if I didn't report in as to what is happening, you wouldn't even know I was even there.
4. No complaints My final objective is complete my enrollment with no complaints.

With those objectives in mind, let's go through my four steps to conducting a good face-to-face enrollment:

1. STEP #1: Meet with department heads The first step is to meet with each department head individually to explain the reasons for the enrollment, exactly what the underwriting requirements are and then to develop a plan that works best for everyone involved to help move their employees through the educational process.
2. STEP #2: Personalized education meetings The second step is to meet with the employees to explain what the underwriting offer is and exactly how it works.
3. STEP #3: Give employees time to review the offer on their own The third step is to let employees take the information home to review it, discuss it with their families and decide on their own if it makes sense for them. This is the secret sauce to making a face-to-face enrollment go smoothly. Once employees realize that you are indeed there to educate and facilitate a process, and not worried about whether they sign up or not, only that they understand the offer, everyone goes through the process without a hitch.
4. STEP #4: Follow-Up The final step is to follow-up with each employee, answer any questions they may have and to ask them if they want to sign up or not.

This is the basic frame-work I follow for every enrollment I do.

TESTIMONIALS: If you want to read some comments from people who worked for employers I've actually worked with and taken through this process, you can read their comments on this page.

Now you know why I'm committed to meeting with employees face to face, what my objectives are each time I do an enrollment and an overview of the key steps I take to complete my work effectively.

As always, if you are an employer group or broker, I am interested in working with you. Feel free to leave your questions below or to contact me.

Why You Shouldn't Use Commissioned Enrollers

One reason that negotiating access is sometimes tough to do with employers today is because of agents who worked with their employees in the past. One bad experience with the wrong agent can unfortunately keep the good ones out. Many agents that work with employer groups don't recognize that it's a privilege to work with their employees and great care must be taken to continue to receive that privileged access.

One of the biggest complaints that employees often have is that they feel pressured to buy insurance. But where does that pressure come from? The reason that pressure is there is because of the type of enrollment process they use or it's likely that the person was paid on commission.

Commissioned based sales is an honorable business, but a commissioned based enroller can cause potential problems and one of those problems is that they overly encourage people to buy their offerings just so they can earn a commission.

When that happens employees can sense it and they don't like it.

Therefore, a good policy to follow is to only allow enrollers paid on a per diem basis to work with your employees. Insisting that per diem enrollers are used has the following advantages:

• The enroller is paid the same whether employees sign up or not
• The focus is on the enrollment's educational process and not focused strictly on the number of people signing up
• Employees can feel when enrollers are there to help them and they appreciate the help

So, to ensure the above, what you'll want to do is make sure that enrollers that have access to your employees are paid on a per diem rate and not commission on a per app basis.

The other thing that's an important step to eliminate perceived pressure from an enrollment is to add a step to the enrollment process that allows employees to take the information home before they decide instead of making them decide on the spot.

Sometimes, not devoting time for employees to review a product offering gives the illusion of pressure even when per diem enrollers are used.

On all enrollments I conduct, I only use per diem enrollers and I also build adequate time in my enrollment process to let employees take the information presented to them home before they decide. This eliminates the perception of pressure where it doesn't exist.

The only hint of pressure that should ever exist in an enrollment is in encouraging people to at least hear the offer available so that everyone benefits from the elimination of underwriting and requirements for all.

I talk more about my enrollment process in my post called 3 Steps to More Effective Benefits Communication at Enrollment.

Let me know what you think about paying enrollers commission.