Most brokers find that experience leads them to go beyond thesimple features of price and benefits and the creature comforts ofthe one-stop shop voluntary carrier. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Every broker has his or her own set of features that top thelist in voluntary carrier selection. For some, it’sbrand, ratings or perhaps familiarity, while for others it might bethe price and benefits found in specific products. For many, they simply expectease in working through a carrier with an array of products andservices under one roof.

As brokers get more experience with the realities of voluntaryprogram implementation, more and more are realizing that theircriteria for carrier selection needs to expand. Most find thatexperience leads them to go beyond the simple features of price and benefits and thecreature comforts of the one-stop shop.

Related: 5 trends to expect in voluntary benefits in2019

Many brokers look at voluntary carriers’ value-added services asone way to evaluate the carrier. Many carriers claim to havecompetitive differentiation in these services, but how muchdistinction is there, really? Eastbridge’s recent report, VoluntaryCarrier Broker and Client Services, found that many services arestarting to become more common than different. The report showsthat the majority of carriers now offer online product training andvoluntary sales training, along with access to forms and commissionstatements.

Bonnie Brazzell and NickRockwell, Eastbridge Consulting Group, Inc.

Carrier enrollment support is another area that some brokersevaluate in their selection process. Our study found the provisionof an online enrollment system to be among the most commonenrollment-related services provided by carriers. However, with somany entities now offering brokers and employers stand-aloneplatforms, it’s questionable how valuable carrier-providedenrollment systems will be to brokers in the future.

Perhaps some of the more important aspects of carrier selectionstill lie in the nuances found in working with each productmanufacturer. For example, when considering administration, maybeit’s not a question of whether a carrier allows self-billing (whichsounds nice at first), but more a question of whether they allowself-billing and still have a reconciliation process that maintainsup-to-date employee records. After all, if a carrier’s billingprocess has holes, that will only lead to angry clients.

In addition, it is not enough that a carrier offers tools suchas a broker portal; the effectiveness of the portal becomes a moreimportant question. Does it allow you to download commissionstatements in a way that can be merged with other data, or is itsimply static information? The ability to merge commissionstatements can save you time and make it easier to manage your bookof business. These are not trivial factors, but often difficult tofit into a spreadsheet when comparing carrier options.

It’s easy to zero in on surface-level factors for carrierselection, such as price and benefits; however, as competition inthe voluntary market gets stronger, it’s important to choosecarriers based on a broader set of features. Brokers who want tosucceed will look at the details of how the carrier supports them,the employer and the employee.

Read more:

• The biggest threat to your voluntary business? It’snot what you think
• The evolution of voluntary: Expanding voluntarybenefit offerings
• 5 way brokers can maximize voluntary benefitsportfolios