Today’s group benefits broker is shorthanded, according to PatToner.

He says the product marketing for group voluntary products lacksin “sophistication” relative to marketing in other areas.

“The main reason for that is the data is not there to fullysupport brokers,” says Toner, the founder and CEO of CustomerBenefit Analytics.

Conceptually, Toner says, it’s no news to brokers that differentworker demographics would benefit from different voluntaryofferings.

Nor are brokers unaware of the need to craft communicationsstrategies targeted to specific market segments.

But bridging gap from conceptual to practical is easier saidthan done in today’s voluntary market.

That challenge is what motivated Toner to launch CBA almostthree years ago after a successful career helping to lead Cigna’sgroup voluntary marketing segment. This year, CBA launched aproprietary analytics platform designed to arm brokers withdata-driven strategies on who buys which voluntary products and,most importantly, why they make the decisions they do.

“The objective of any good broker – and, frankly, the key tosucceeding in the voluntary market – is to get participantsthe benefits they need,” says Toner.

CBA’s platform was borne from the real-life frustrations ofmarketers for brokers and carriers alike, which Toner has witnessedplenty of over the years. “They lack detailed information on whycustomers make the decisions they do when it comes to voluntarybenefits,” he adds.

Mining hearts and minds for actionabledata

CBA created its platform in coordination with market researchconsultancy Lodestar Advisory Partners. It is, says Toner, thefirst tool to give brokers targeted voluntary messaging strategiesthat ensure they always present the most relevant options to theappropriate employers and employees during enrollment season.

Toner knew he would need an expansive, original database ofenrollment behavior in order to build the interactive softwareprogram he dreamed of, which would generate predictive analytics ofvoluntary consumption habits. To accommodate that need, about 3,000full-time workers in groups with 50-plus lives who were offered atleast three health-related benefits in the previous open enrollmentperiod answered a series of questions about why they chose toenroll in – or waive – specific voluntary coverage.

Along with major medical offering, CBA and Lodestar’s researchtracked the consumption habits for nine other voluntary products:vision, dental, life insurance, short and long term disability,critical illness (CI), accident, hospital indemnity and wellnessprograms.

From there, the platform applied self-reported personal data– ranging from income, age and gender to household size,education, industry and region – into algorithms breaking outpurchasing decisions by highly specified segments.

Are married, childless millennials earning $75,000 a year likelyto buy long-term disability? Does the affluent pre-retiree at alarge Midwestern group opt into wellness offerings? If a workerwith no higher than a high school education waived his or herdental offering, was it because his or her spouse had a “better”package?

Dispelling common broker myths: It’snot about the ‘gap’

Toner calls CBA’s proprietary research “attitudinal.”

“What we’ve done is unique in the sense that we track strictlythe employee perspective,” says Toner. “So much of how brokersmarket voluntary to groups is organized around products – notemployee preference.”

The platform, in effect, allows brokers to applydirect-to-consumer market research principles within the groupbenefits chassis, he explains.

He says some of the data behind the platform support what somebrokers already intuitively know about voluntary consumptionhabits.

But they also dispel common myths.

“One of the larger conclusions we draw from the research is thatwhen it comes to consumer behavior and voluntary products, peopletend to buy the policies for emotional reasons and waive thepolicies for rational reasons,” says Toner. “So, for a broker, thatmeans if your communication strategy is built on explaining thebells and whistles of a policy, you are likely missing the mark.That is not why people buy voluntary in the group setting.”

With accident and CI in particular, “peace of mind” wasemployees’ primary reason for opting in. Less than 10 percent ofrespondents cited filling gaps in their major medical plan as theirreason for choosing each product.

“With a product like critical illness, most of today’s marketingis in terms of its value as gap coverage,” notes Toner. “But whenpush comes to shove, it’s not about that for employees. Thatsuggests that a lot of the marketing energy invested in CI today isbeing wasted.”

Conversely, when participants waived CI and accident policies,they were making a largely rational, not emotional, decision. Forboth of these products, the vast majority say they waived for oneof three reasons:

1. They did not need the protection

2. They could not afford it

3. They did not think the benefit was worth the cost

“Clearly, brokers need to communicate differently for differentproducts and to different demographics,” says Toner. “Withmore-affluent workers, the messaging should be designed around whythe product is worth the premium. For lower-earners, brokers willwant to communicate that a product is more affordable than theymight think.”

When are there too manyoptions?

CBA’s data show takeup rates drop off fairly precipitously aftermajor medical, vision, dental and life insurance.

That raises the question of how many other voluntary benefitsbrokers can offer without overwhelming participants and increasingdisengagement.

When consumers had three voluntary options, 52 percent acquiredall three. When they had five, only 35 percent bought all options.Yet when consumers were offered nine voluntary options, about 25percent bought each policy.

“There is some evidence of wallet, and maybe even enrollment,fatigue as more products are offered,” Toner says. “But the factthat there is a considerable segment of the population that boughtall nine voluntary options means for a lot of workers, the productsare seen as an important part of their compensation.”

The voluntary market will eventually close the technology gapwith other industries, he predicts, and offer more consumer-centricproduct design. That will give brokers who have struggled to crackthe voluntary market new advantages, Toner says.

“Too much of today’s marketing content is bogged down andmissing the mark with employees,” he adds. “We think this platformallows brokers and carriers to slice and dice data to find insightsthey wouldn’t easily find otherwise.”