In the voluntary market, conservation takes many forms. We think about keeping our current accounts, protecting them by selling multiple lines of business in each, and even reclaiming accounts that have gone dormant. But one of the least appreciated forms is conversion: the percentage of employee-customers who come off of list bill who successfully keep their coverage by moving to another payment mechanism.

Five percent (with 10 percent being unusually good) is a common conversion rate among voluntary carriers. Yet one carrier has reached a peak of 28 percent and routinely reached 25 percent. Carriers already conserve many of the worst risks on their books—those are the 5 percent most likely to initiate porting, converting, or simply keeping their individual voluntary product on a direct bill or ACH, or credit card payment basis.

Raising the conversion rate improves the converted pool and some analyses have shown the pool normalizing as soon as 15 percent. While strong conversion rates are good for the carrier, they're important for you, too. Imagine a 500-life account with 50 percent participation across all employee groups and 20 percent annual turnover. One hundred employees leave each year, 50 of whom are owners of voluntary coverage.