I’ve been thinking a lot about the disruption tomorrow may bring. Most industrieshave already experienced more disruption than we have, so there hasbeen much attention paid to potential disruption of our business in recent years.

Disruption takes place when the interface between a customer anda product provider is changed radically. Much of the disruptionthat has captured headlines is technology based. Think Uber, Airbnbor Tesla. Technology is just an enabling factor in disruption. Thereal point of disruption is the interface—the communicationschannel that brings customers closer to providers of products andservices. The product or service itself is unchanged.

People want transportation from one place to another. Uber makesthat happen. The interface is new, but what it does for people hasnot changed at all. But by changing the ability of a customer tosummon transportation on demand, Uber has changed the economicsunderlying the service. Customers like the convenient process, butalso the favorable pricing made possible by using in-placeresources. Thus, the Uber disruption is one of communicationbetween provider and customer, abetted by a distinct pricingadvantage: resource management is much more efficient when itrequires less capital.

There are lots of people thinking about how to disrupt insuranceand the benefits business. Just crawl around the web for a whileand you will find Fabric (“life insurance made easy”), Lemonade(“the first peer-to-peer insurance company”) and many others. Thinkof the impact Zenefits has had on distribution and service,despite their well-documented issues.

So, what will drive disruption in our business, and how can weposition ourselves to be winners (Uber) and not losers (taxicompanies)?

While we are not immune to disruption, there are some factorsthat protect voluntary benefits. A major driver of disruption ofemployee benefits is government actions. The ACA is a greatexample. For example, if the tax incentive for employers to providehealth benefits to employees is eliminated, it could result in atransition away from employers providing benefits to simplyencouraging employees to buy benefits on their own. This seemsunlikely, because employers would still want to provide employeesthe value of simplified product selection and simple supportprocesses.

The processing of employee benefit plans and eligibilitytracking has already been disrupted by carrier web services, benadmin systems, and private exchanges.

Our process is already a disruption of standard insurance sincethe purchase process is comprised of the research phase, thepurchasing phase, and the fulfillment phase. The employer haseffectively cut the process itself by doing the research and makingproduct/carrier decisions for the employee. Employers find value,because insurance companies are willing to offer guaranteed issuecoverage to all the employees in the group.

Voluntary benefits feature the convenience of “check a box”enrollment, and the employer offers employees the convenience ofpayroll deductions, another improvement over the individual billingprocess.

As tomorrow arrives, we can expect the voluntary products andprocesses of today to evolve and potentially be disrupted. But intoday's world, these products and supporting processes are alreadydisruptors, paving the way for future evolution.