During the Benefits Selling Expo, Benefits Sellingannounced the launch of the Broker Innovation Lab, a program thatshowcases brokers that are transforming the way we do business.

This got me thinking about innovation in our business—and howinnovation can and should relate to a competitive advantage. Hereis a list of the kind of topics our business might follow toinnovate.

Increasing simplicity, ease and convenience is often thebest form of innovation. Our business revolves around making theworld of benefits—everything from billing, eligibility andenrollment process—simple and easy for our customers.

New products are always great innovations. While our coreproduct areas—medical, disability and life insurance plusretirement plans—have been around for years, new products havearisen as needs emerge. One of the drivers behind critical illnessprotection, for example, is that people survive most criticalevents and the cost of that survival goes well beyond the cost ofmedical procedures. Fifty years ago, we did not have as high anexpectation of survival—and we did not have critical illnesspolicies.

Product extension is a great way to innovate, as long asit does not become so complicated that the essence of the productis lost. An example of extension of products is the addition ofaccelerated death benefits for terminal illness to life insurance.Packaging products together in creative ways can result in thewhole (of the package) having greater appeal than the individualproducts.

Services as products have arisen, especially aroundemerging lifestyle needs like ID theft, and online activitymonitoring. We also see many variations of financial and physicalwellness in this space.

Innovation in communications is a big area ofconcentration today, as we rush to move from in-person employeecommunications to those enabled by technology. In the past fewyears we have seen a consistent movement toward multi-mediaapproaches to explaining benefits, establishing the needs ofemployees and enrolling.

There are a couple of traps in thinking innovatively. One is tobe too complicated. Keep in mind that the best innovations areusually the most simple, easy, and convenient for the customer. Theother is to make sure our innovations are important to thecustomer.