Not unexpectedly, most Major League Baseball rookies havea lower batting average than veteran players, especially early inthe season. We understand they'll weed themselves out, thesurvivors will improve and the group average will revert to themean.

But an untrained observer might conclude that the latest trendin baseball is to hit less often. An irresponsible observer wouldascribe cause and motivation to the data and might try to lullopposing pitchers into thinking they are easy outs, only to explodewith productivity later in the season. And they'd show the earlyseason batting data to support their position. They'd be wrong.

Carriers often ask us about self-administration of voluntarybenefits, and the fact that it's offered by more of the newvoluntary carriers now than in past years. They wonder if this is atrend in the business and suggest that, after all, it's easier onthe carrier than traditional voluntary policy administration. Butonly one-third of employers prefer self-admin. Carrier-administeredvoluntary dominates the small market, is very common in themid-market and has begun entering the large case market.

Employee benefit brokers have entered the business en mass, andmany of these people are still new to voluntary, falling back ontheir employer-paid experience to guide them. More than 95 percentof employee benefit brokers offer voluntary benefits, although moststill sell relatively little.

But in aggregate, these brokers represent 57 percent (2013) oftotal voluntary sales. They are moving up the learning curverapidly, and as they mature in the business, they're concludingthat carrier ease is not as important to business retention asemployer simplicity. And, self-administered usually does not equalemployer simplicity. As these brokers climb the voluntary learningcurve, it's not surprising they're beginning to migrate toward moremarket-friendly, sophisticated voluntary approaches.

For the near future, we are an industry targeted by many newcarriers. But don't read too much into it, as it's a sign ofrookie-carrier inexperience rather than a league-wide trend.