More than ever, 120 health insurance brokers are serving as“strategic consultants” to their clients, particularly as thehealth care benefit arena continues to becloudy.

That's according to the report, “Strategies and Service Innovation Shaping Brokers'Transformation from Sales Representatives to Strategic BenefitsConsultants,” by DirectPath.

Related: Brokers sound off

The Birmingham, Ala.-based benefits management software providersurveyed 120 health insurance brokers and found that 83 percentreport that employers look to them to manage health carespending.

Because of that, 78 percent have added new products and servicesin the past year to help their clients control health carecosts.

Related: Open enrollment: When preparation meetsopportunity

“Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing regulatory climate,employers require more guidance than ever before in developing aneffective health care benefits strategy,” the authors write.“Brokers, historically viewed as benefits sales representatives,are recognizing the opportunity to better serve these employers asstrategic consultants.”

To enhance their services, three-quarters (75 percent) of therespondents say they offer engagement, advocacy and transparencyservices.

Employee engagement is the most demanded by employers and mostvalued by brokers, and transparency services are the least demandedby employers and least valued by brokers.

“Though current demand for transparency and advocacy services islower than for employee engagement, we may see this dynamic shiftas education around the value of advocacy and transparency servicesincreases and as the offerings become more popular among brokers,employers and employees,” the authors write.

Brokers are also seeing value from services relating to voluntary benefits and ERISA/ACA compliance,according to the report.

Seventy-nine percent see value from voluntary benefits services,while 84 percent of respondents reported seeing value from theircompliance services.

“By combining innovative services with their deep expertise inthe health care benefits landscape, brokers will be betterpositioned to assist employers during peak demand periods -- likeopen enrollment -- and to take on a more strategic role as anessential extension of their client’s HR teams throughout theyear,” the authors write.