Depending on who you talk to, the small business market iseither a totally untapped opportunity for selling voluntary or it’sa market that is not worth the effort. Which of these two divergentopinions is true isn’t clear cut, but may become more so afterreviewing the market and looking at some of themisunderstandings.

First, we have to agree on a definition for the “small businessmarket.” There’s no industry definition—we’ve heard as small as“under 50 lives” and as large as “up to 300 lives.” For the purposeof this discussion, let’s define the small business market asaccounts with between 10 and 100 employees.

The primary misunderstanding in this market that clearly needsdispelling is one we hear occasionally at industry trade shows: Noone is serving the small group market and, thus, few smallemployers today offer any voluntary benefits. That’s simply nottrue. According to recent Eastbridge research, three-quarters ofsmall employers offer at least one voluntary benefit.