There's a lot of buzz in the benefits world about change. Growth of sales in the voluntary market is often described as the product of change — change in employee demographics, change in the economy, change from PPACA and so on.

Amid all this talk about change, it's easy to forget why voluntary still prospers — and that's because the need for additional family protection hasn't changed.

Here is a perfect example. In 2004 MetLife published a piece called “Patterns in Group Life Insurance” based on their study of employee benefit trends. Here are some of the key findings:

Employees continue to lack life insurance, and those who are covered are significantly underinsured.
Concern about the financial impact of premature death is higher among the life prime needs segment (employees with spouses/children at home).
Female breadwinners have lower personal income and are less likely to be married, which underscores why their concern about the financial impact of premature death is higher than their male counterparts.
Benefits satisfaction is strongly correlated with employee loyalty and overall job satisfaction.

This set of findings could have been from a 2014 study. All these drivers of change have done over the past 10 years is solidify the situation.

Another insight in the study is characterized by the headline of one section: “Despite concerns about income loss, inertia persists.” The study goes on to point out that even though the majority of employees are extremely concerned about their family's financial security, almost half have done nothing to buy needed protection.

Even people experiencing a life event such as a marriage or birth rarely use that opportunity to upgrade their benefits. Again, 10 years after the report, do any of us think most employees have heard our messages and taken action to preserve their financial security? (I vote no.)

The study concludes with insights very consistent with today's thinking.

The workplace continues to be the main source for life insurance.
Benefit communications are important and should be tailored to an employee's needs.

Both the report discussed and my column are about 10 years old. I hope someone archives this specific column for another decade. I suspect it will still ring true. As the French say, plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

Instant Insights /

The more things change&hellip;

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