What new products should be considered?

What do health insurance exchanges mean to our clients? To us? Should we be looking into private exchanges, or the public exchanges?

How can I help our customers reduce their health care expense?

What will be the role of benefit communications and enrollment services in the exchange world?

What about defined contribution benefit models? What effect will they have on what we now refer to as employer-paid products or voluntary products? Will we consider all benefits as voluntary—or all as paid from the employer contribution? What happens to participation requirements and underwriting rules in this scenario? Will employees still attach as much value to the employer and broker in selecting products, or will they be more likely to seek other product sources, thus diminishing the value an employer gets from benefits? Will defined contribution models remain under an employer-selected administrator's control, or will the employer simply give the employee money and say, in effect, “you're on your own; go spend it”? 

What will employees think of all this? Will they become engaged as better consumers of insurance and health care? What new services will they expect?

What other laws and regulations are going to drive change in the benefits business? For example, how are we going to help customers manage more information about their benefits expense within the requirements of ever-increasing privacy regulations?  

What about technology? How should my business be using social networking? 

Now is a good time to think about these questions, and to formulate answers. This is a great time to be optimistic about our business. As Winston Churchill observed, “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”