For voluntary insurance benefits vendors, the jury is still out on whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has helped or hindered sales.
Eastbridge Consulting released its biannual survey of voluntary sales executives, asking them, among other questions, whether they believed the reform act had augmented their sales efforts. Half said it had either a positive (43 percent) or very positive (7 percent) effect on sales. Another large percentage (39 percent) weren't sure whether the effect was positive or negative, and 11 percent said it had negatively affected their sales.
"Overall, carriers with higher voluntary sales in 2014 are more positive about ACA's impact on their voluntary sales than carriers with lower sales numbers," Eastbridge said in a release.
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On the subject of private insurance exchanges, respondents were again split, but were overall much more optimistic that these exchanges would boost sales. Four in 10 said such exchanges were already "very important" or "important," while more than half said they believe exchanges will be "more important" in the future.
"None of the executives surveyed believe that the importance of private exchanges will stay the same or decline in five years' time," Eastbridge said.
Most of those surveyed believe that defined contribution plans "will create value in terms of voluntary sales" either in the near or longer term. No one felt defined plans would decline in importance.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
